


Like Leaves Fall in Autumn

by KittyKellogs



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Drug Use, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Idols, Multi, Porn With Plot, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2020-04-24 07:32:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 48,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19168663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyKellogs/pseuds/KittyKellogs
Summary: This takes place in an Omegaverse that shows the progression of Kuroo and Kenma's life. Kenma becomes an idol, this follows his life in the public eye and his life out of sight. Kuroo strives to become a doctor throughout this fiction, and then begins to question the calling that he chose for himself.  There is lots of things that get in their way, both with them as a duo and them individually.





	1. Love at First Sight

**Author's Note:**

> This is an introduction chapter, it has a lot of info dropping in it, so it's a little bit of a headache to write. I hope it's not a headache to read!  
> Any feedback would be appreciated!

Thinking back, I had fallen in love with Kuroo the first day that I met him. Well, maybe not in love, but he is the person that I am most infatuated with. I glanced up at Kuroo, in his new high school uniform, surrounded by brightly colored blossoms and a blue sky, he looked… a lot more grown up. Kuroo looked down, and smirked,

“What are you thinking about Kenma?”

“You look like an old man.”

“Wow! That’s not nice Kenma, how do you even have friends with an attitude like that?” he exclaimed.

“I don’t see what that has to do with you looking old.”

It was strange to look back at the ways that Kuroo changed. I met him in the fall, when his mom had decided to pay us a visit after she found out there was a child in the house next door. She hadn’t ever seen me playing in the yard, I wasn’t much of an outdoorsist. He was hiding behind his mom and when I said hi he blushed. It wasn’t very often that I was the one taking the initiative, so the start of our friendship was unusual. At first, he was a boring kid to be around, he didn’t talk, and didn’t show very much interest in the games that I had. It was kind of annoying when he would randomly pop up at my parent’s house, because that meant that I had to include him. And eventually, it did get boring playing the same couple of multiplayer games. 

“Did you want to play something different?” I asked, setting down my controller.

That was the first time that I saw his eyes light up. He grabbed my wrist and dragged me down the stairs. It was so hot outside that day I didn’t want to be out there, but Kuroo looked excited as he pulled a volleyball out of the garage of his house.

“This isn’t really what I meant…” I told him as he dragged me away from his house.

We played volleyball for two hours that afternoon, and that was what pulled Kuroo out of his shell. My hands and wrists were bright red, and my mother did not appreciate that at dinner. After that he wouldn’t shut up about anything. He went on and on about volleyball, then he started talking to me about games.

But there was a day when we were in elementary school that he didn’t talk at all. He had tears streaming down his face, which I found extremely shocking. When we got home he decided to stay the night at my house.

“But you didn’t ask your mom. What if we get in trouble?” I asked him.

“We won’t.” Was all I got as a response.

Surprisingly, we didn’t get in trouble, in fact my mother set up sleeping bags in the living room and turned on Kuroo’s favorite movie. She made popcorn and gave us candy, it was strange because it was a weeknight. I didn’t ask any questions though, because it seemed like everything was a sensitive subject. After the movie my dad tucked us into our sleeping bags and told us to get plenty of rest. I fell asleep pretty fast, even after Kuroo asked me to stay up, that was the day with the most emotional minefields that I had ever experienced in my childhood, I was exhausted. But later that night around twelve, I was awoken to the sound of footsteps. My eyes instantly went to Kuroo’s sleeping bag, to see if he had heard the same thing, but he wasn’t there.

“Kuro?” I whispered. “What are you doing?”

I spotted him over by the window and began to get up. The street lights silhouetted Kuro’s outline, but it was dark in the living room I could barely see him. He turned towards me, there were tears glistening on his face, and his eyes were swollen,

“Waiting for my mom to come back again…” he croaked out.

“Oh,”

It suddenly all made sense what was going on. This whole day I had been walking around in a daze trying to figure out why Kuro, my best friend, had been crying. His mom had left, and it wasn’t the first time that she had. My parents were so gentle, and we had sweets. I thought about the various things that my parents did for me when I was upset. The thing that stuck out the most for me was the Fall Lullaby, a song that my dad had written for me shortly before I was born. They always sung it to me whenever I was sad about something.

“Kuro,” I whispered,

I grabbed his head and rested it in my lap, Kuroo at the time was pretty complainant, I stroked my fingers through his hair, trying to imitate my mother. Then I sang him the Fall Lullaby, looking back it makes me cringe.

“Earth to Kenma!” Kuroo snapped me out of my daydream.

I felt my face flush, “Get your hands out of my face Kuro!”

“I swear- we are going to miss the bus,” he ushered me forward. “All because you're in outer space today!”

Thankfully, since it was the first day, Kuro decided that he wanted to leave on an earlier bus. We couldn’t be late even if we tried to be. I sat down in the seat closest to the door and Kuroo sat next to me, the way that we had been, since elementary school. We sat for a couple minutes in silence as the train bumped around. The bumps in the train reminded me of the days after Kuro presented, being around other people had his scent reeking off of him in big waves. Now he wore patches, and took various regulators to avoid that embarrassment.

“How have lessons been?” asked Kuro, out of nowhere.

“They’ve been ok,” I answered.

“It’s been forever since I heard you sing, when is your next thingy?”

“Oh… it’s next weekend. You can come if you want.”

Kuro smiled. My heart, this is why I hate making him smile. But it’s easy to do. Singing lessons… I had the week off from those… I could play my new game on Wednesday after school. Originally, my dad had given me singing lessons, and I had them everyday after school, but lately he had been in and out of the house. He was a great dad and a great teacher when he did teach me music, but I had a growing suspicion that the bruises on my mother were not from various accidents around the house. That probably meant that he would be gone soon, which even if my dad was hitting my mom, made me sickeningly sad. Kuro tapped my shoulder,

“It’s your stop Kenma,” he said.

“Oh, yeah, I guess I’ll see you later Kuro.”

I waved at him as I stood up and headed for the middle high school. I wish that there wasn’t an opening ceremony, it’s bothersome. I planned force myself over to an empty corner of the lot, just playing on my phone when I ran straight into a couple.

“Oh- I’m sorry, sorry,” I said before awkwardly scooting away.

I felt myself burn alive from my head to my toes after walking away from them. First day humiliation, I need to pay attention to where I’m going. I plopped down on the grass near the outskirts of the school grounds and waited. Playing games didn’t seem appealing anymore, the couple just brought back memories from earlier in the summer when Kuro asked if we could practice kissing. It was a gross request, and I have not changed my stance on that. It was only gross because he had an Omega boyfriend, and his excuse was that he didn’t want to embarrass himself with inexperience.

This request at first, was out of the blue. When Kuro presented as an Alpha our relationship changed a lot, he never slept in the same bed as me, he didn’t shower at my house anymore, and he didn’t share pj’s with me whenever I “forgot” them at my house. That signaled to me that he didn’t like me like I liked him, and that was a hard pill to swallow. But we were nine and ten when that started so the wallowing didn’t last long. It just became the norm in our relationship to not share personal things like that. Thinking back, it was both of us chilling on the floor in his bedroom, playing some game that Kuro really liked at the time.

“Kenma, if I asked you to help me with something- er different than usual, would you do it?” he asked.

Me not really paying that much attention to him, “Yeah.”

“Ok, well you know my boyfriend, Jun, we are getting serious (serious at the time meant they were close to kissing) I was wondering if you would let me practice kissing with you.” he said.

I scrunched up my face, “Kuro, that’s gross, and that’s cheating.”

“Well! Hear me out it’s just practice, it doesn’t really count if I’m doing it for the benefit of him!” He valiantly defended his position.

Even his weak arguments made this situation all the more tempting. I have to be the moral one here, I can’t allow Kuro to do this to his first real boyfriend.

“No, I don’t want your gross, smelly pheromones on me anyway.” I said. “And I’m going to tell Jun on you.”

“I can put a patch on!” he exclaimed.

“Mhm, good for you Kuro.”

“Kenma, please…” he said, “Just a couple times, and I’ll have a patch on.”

He stood up, halting my attempt to continue to play. This isn’t a game that can be played solo, and neither is kissing I guess. He found a patch laying on his paper strewn desk, and stuck it on quickly. He then sat on his bed and patted the spot next to him. I sighed, but stood up anyway, I can’t believe that I’m doing this. I situated myself on the bed next to Kuro, closer than I would have normally. Then I waited,

“Are you going to start?”

“Yeah, I’m just-”

Suddenly, he jammed his lips against mine! His hands were cupping my face, but it didn’t feel… right. I let it continue for another couple of seconds before I couldn’t take it anymore. It was slobbery, I pulled back and a trail of saliva followed my face.

“Kuro, ew!” I rubbed the saliva off my lips, “Why are you salivating so much?”

The words left my lips before I could even think that they might hurt his feelings. His face flushed,

“Sorry, I don’t know how to do this…”

Oh wow, he is cute. Even if his kisses feel like a used binky. Without thinking I put my hand on his shoulder,

“We can try again, just don’t drool in my mouth this time.”

He scoffed, “Yeah, ok,”

This time I leaned up and connected our lips, trying to place my hands on the bed to steady myself, but they ended up awkwardly placed on his knees. Kuro began to reciprocate the kiss, he was still a little more forceful than me, but it wasn’t overbearing and sudden like last time. I thought that the kiss had gone on a good length, especially for a first kiss, but Kuro seemed to disagree, his hands found my hips and yanked me closer. I felt myself blush as a little whiny sound came out of my mouth. My mouth left his to breath,

“Kuro… we should stop…” I murmured between kisses.

I knew that we weren’t going to. My hands had left his knee a while ago to cup the back of his neck, he pulled me up onto his lap so that I was straddling his legs. We were both making noises now, gross little moans and whimpers. Our tongues were intermingling, and I found myself immensely enjoying his presence underneath me.

“Tetsurou?”

Instantly, both Kuro and I knew that Jun had just walked in on our “practice.” I twisted myself off of Kuro’s lap at a speed I didn’t know that I was capable of getting to. But my foot got caught between Kuro’s legs and as he rushed up to go after Jun who had run out the door, he yanked me with him. I fell forward and banged my right eye against the edge of Kuro’s bed frame. I hissed and cupped the whole right side of my face, it felt like I had gotten stabbed. I crouched down on the ground and pulled my hand away from my face, there was blood… in my hand.

“Kuro?” I called out.

I knew his grandmother couldn’t hear me even when I was loud. Slowly, I stood up, there were spots dancing right in front of my… left eye.

The bell rang and I realized that most of the other students had gone inside. Oh fuck, oh shit, I probably look crazy, staring off into space for nearly thirty minutes. I stood up and fast walked my way to class before the bell rang again a final time. In class I was paired up with a couple other seniors to help with the tour of the school for the first years. There were lots of Omegas who presented over summer break, they walked around all happy and stinky. This shouldn't be allowed at school. After the tour was done, students went back to their classrooms and we started our lessons for the year. Mostly, it was just boring first day activities, that ticked by slowly until school was done.

I thought about waiting by the gate for Kuro, but then realized that he would be at volleyball practice now. So on the walk to the bus stop I took out my phone and played some games. The track team jogged by wearing their green and white jerseys. The captain’s number one reminded me of Kuro. He had tried to include me on the volleyball team, but my mom didn’t want me to. She told me that I needed to focus on school, singing, and dancing, that lessons already cost enough money and I should appreciate them. Kuro snuck me to practice one time anyway and my mother found out when she saw the marks on my arms. She grounded me for a month after that, no video games and no tv. I did really well on my assignments that month. But she never actually asked me what I wanted to do.


	2. The Love Interest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing bad happens in this chapter, we find that Kuroo is a little sad, but that's to be expected. I plan to be adding a chapter to the story weekly? I know that it's not super fast like a lot of the other writers on AO3, who can upload a chapter a day, but it's better than inconsistent uploading at the very least.

I don’t remember the day that I met Kenma. I remember the day before that though, my mom told me we were moving in with my grandma and grandpa. She made it sound like a fun adventure, the way that she made everything sound… My mother was a drug addict, but she was still a smart woman. A woman full of love. She left me at my grandparent’s house because she knew that was better for me than living with her. But it sure did hurt at the time, and it hurts now when she doesn’t call or visit. That always scares me, but there’s something in me that knows that she’s alive. I rolled over, in bed, this side is not much better than the other.

All it did was remind me of Kenma, and his soft lips, and his bruised eye. I was shocked when I saw his eye the next day it was swelling up, but I played along with his slipping on his shoe onto the bed frame while I was leaving story. The worst part though was that Jun didn’t even understand what was happening, even after I explained it to him. Kenma wasn’t some random friend of mine, he was more so an extension of myself. I was just practicing with myself, to which he said bullshit, you don’t just make out with someone else. Kenma warned me and it was my fault for not listening. My feelings were still crushed though, hopefully Jun and I aren’t in the same class.

That was three weeks ago, and I’ve had some time on the nights that I couldn’t sleep to reflect on what a partner was to me. If they couldn’t trust Kenma with me, then were they really worth my time? I then found myself thinking about Kenma in a completely different light, and I burned with shame. An Alpha male dating a Beta/Unpresented male was not something that could be accepted. I think it’s best to go without a partner, to focus on my future more than the person I want to be with when I get there. It will all unfold for me as it needs to, and hopefully Kenma will be there with me.

My alarm rang, stirring a sigh from deep within. Time to run and then wake up Kenma for school. Otherwise, he’ll never go, just play games in bed until he dies. Or gets hungry. Once I get running all this emptiness goes away, it’s easier to be happy when I move.

~ A Small One Month Timeskip ~

“Hey, Kuro?” asked Kenma one day on our way to school.

Our trip to school was one of the only times that we had to spend together. No other adults or friends to harass us.

“Hmm?”

“My parents are getting a divorce, my dad was wondering if you would help move out some of his heavier music equipment.”

“What!? You can’t just drop a bomb and then ask a casual question like that!! When did you find out?”

“I found out last night, but it was late so I didn’t want to text you about it.” he said.

He was looking down at the ground, I stopped him and embraced him.

“It’s going to be ok, Kenma.” I murmured into his head.

His hair smells so good, he used watermelon shampoo when he was little, but it smelled more like an expensive perfume now.

“I know,” Kenma said.

His arms slipped around my waist, and he patted my back.

“You can let go of me now.”

“Why aren’t you sad?” I asked.

“I don’t really want to talk about it, ok?”

“Ok.”

After that Kenma really didn’t talk much during our morning commute for the rest of the week. Mostly, I made conversation with myself. It kept up like that until Friday when I skipped practice to help Kenma’s dad. Kenma was trying his best to help with the boxes, but the bigger boxes were just about the same height as him, so even with his dad’s help they struggled. Kenma’s mother was watching and following all the movers like a hawk, her heels stomping through the hallways. Kenma was lifting a smaller square box, labeled dishes on the front.

“Oi, Kenma! You can stop trying to lift that up, just take a break for now.”

I lifted the box out of his arms, he gave me a quick smile before ducking away to get inside the house. It was chilly outside, but sweat was beading down the movers face as we continued to pile boxes in the large moving van. Kenma’s father gave me a nod,

“Thank you for helping,” he seemed tender.

When Kenma’s mother saw me, she crossed her arms and stomped over to Kenma’s father. They talked angrily at each other for awhile and I didn’t really know what to do, so I headed inside the house. Kenma was sitting at the kitchen table, there was a single tear streaked down his face. When he saw me he wiped it away, and rolled his eyes,

“I hate having feelings,” his voice was strained.

“It’s better than having none.”

I sat down at the table next to him, the living room looked so barren now that it didn’t have any of Kenma’s dad’s things.

“Looks like you guys need to actually do interior decorating now,”

The next day I got reprimanded by my seniors.

“You’re a high schooler now! The team is dependent on you to be consistent when showing up, our whole practice was thrown off because of you!”

“Sorry! I had an unexpected event come up!” I bowed.

“You should be! You can’t become captain if you skip practices!”

After the seniors had good fun torturing me about my absence, I was sent off to exercise with the other first years. We were spiking the ball back and forth over a mini court set up inside the gym. I was a little peeved that the third years had gone so unnecessarily long with their lecture, so I was spiking the ball a little harder than I normally would have. One of the few Omegas on the volleyball team approached me after noticing this, he was also a first year, and a little too short to be on the volleyball team.

“Don’t let what the third years said bother you, they won’t be here when it comes time to choose a captain next year.” he said, “But I want to be captain, so you’re out of the question anyway.”

“That makes us rivals then,” I smiled and stuck my hand out, “My name’s Kuroo.”

“Yaku,” he said, giving my hand a sturdy shake, “May the best man win.”

~ Cue Epic Volleyball Montage ~

I was on the train  home one day, making a mental list of things that I needed to do when I got home. When I thought, high school somehow went by fast and slow at the same time. It seemed that there was all these things happening at once that were all so new. This was the most I had ever improved in volleyball since I had practiced with Kenma during the summertime when we met. The classes were not all that challenging, and I helped Yaku and Kai (another volleyball friend that I met) in their studies frequently. High school as strange as it was to admit was like heaven, I had friends, a hobby and my studies were going well, there wasn’t anything else that I should ask for.

On Wednesdays I didn’t go over to Kenma’s house anymore. That was the day that he had vocal lessons for the past year, but more recently Kenma’s mother has been putting loads more work on him. Shortly, after Kenma’s father left she knew what she wanted to do. For as long as I could remember Kenma was a dress up doll to his mother, she frequently referred to him as her “little idol” because of his talent in performance. She set him up a YouTube channel and he made covers of various dances and songs, occasionally she would allow him to upload a song that he had written, lyrical or not. And she constantly stressed over companies and YouTube views, little things. Kenma didn’t seem all that interested in that sort of thing. He said he enjoyed performing, and had compared it to my volleyball tournaments, it was a way to show skill, but also he didn’t care to join an agency while in school still.

As much as it’s not my business and as selfish as it is, I really want Kenma to go to Nekoma with me. So I secretly hope that all of the agencies that are contacting Kenma’s mother, tell her that they can’t accept a barely 14 year old kid. And so far so good. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, it was Kenma… calling me… after recovering from the initial shock of seeing Kenma’s name scrolled across my phone, I answered the call with urgency.

“Kenma? Are you ok?” I asked.

“Ummm, yes- I was- I was wondering if it would be ok for me to spend the night at your house tonight? My mom- there’s just a lot going on here that- I can’t sleep here tonight.” he stuttered out.

“Sure, it’s a school night, so remember your books and uniform.”

“Ok. Thank you Kuro.”

He hung up. But he was at my house when I got home. It was strange seeing him, because it was a Wednesday and he had obviously filmed a cover, because his face had makeup on it. I had watched Kenma’s covers online, to support him, but he was so different performing that I had never meshed the two personas together entirely. He was eating my pretzels on the couch, with his lipstick faded off, watching some stupid drama TV show. I plopped myself down on the couch and yanked the bag away from him.

“You look nice.”

He stiffened, “Thanks.”

“I shouldn’t be eating these during volleyball season…” I said, while snacking on the delicious bag of pretzels.

“Then why did you buy them?” He scoffed.

“Grandma. She stockpiles everything.”

“Whatever, your grandma does not stockpile pretzels.”

“She does!”

“She does not.”

“She does, I’m not arguing, we need to go to bed.”

Kenma huffed, but turned the TV off and started towards the bathroom. He stopped,

“I usually take pretty long, did you want to go first?”

“No, umm you can go ahead.”

The first thing that I did when I got up was go to the linen closet to find the other sleeping amenities we had. Since I presented when I was ten, I always thought that it was somewhat predatory to sleep in the same bed as Kenma. He’s unpresented, and doesn’t understand what being an Alpha is like, sleeping in separate beds was, precautionary. Just in case. But as I stared at the extra sheets and comforter, it just seemed like so much work, for something that was not going to happen. Kenma was comfortable enough to sleep in the same bed as me, right? It really isn’t that big of a deal… My heart says it is.

As I waited for Kenma to be done with the restroom, I sat in my room trying to find little things to do to pass the time. He really does take forever to get ready for bed. Not to mention my nerves were beginning to get the best of me, what if he’s grossed out by me? Will he want to go back home? Suddenly, Kenma came in, dressed in a big t-shirt and some baggy shorts, and his hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He made a face,

“Have you just been sitting like this the whole time I was in the bathroom?”

He tossed his book bag next to my desk. I looked at how I was sitting, scrunched up with my right leg bouncing around. Looks probably too excited.

“Oh, um no, but I was thinking since it’s a school night that it wouldn’t be worth making a mess with the comforters to clean up in the morning, so do you mind if we both just sleep in my bed tonight?”

“I don’t really- I mean sure, that’s fine… ” he faded off, looking away from me to avoid eye contact.

“If you’re not comfortable, I understand we haven’t really-”

“It’s fine, Kuro.”

When I came back into the room, after cleaning myself up for the night, Kenma was laying in my bed, he was playing a game on his phone. Already, he had taken most the pillows onto his side, and curled up with the blankets around him. It’s truly a sight to behold, his dark hair framing his face, his pink lips emphasized against my dark bed sheets. I gently, climbed into the bed, trying hard not to touch or disturb him. Once I settled in, attempting to sleep in a normal position, he was close enough that I could smell him. Did he put on perfume? Or cologne? I’m sure at this point I was reeking of pheromones, so I willed myself to close my eyes and stop analyzing this situation so hard. It’s just easier this way, that’s the only reason that Kenma is lying next to me in my bed. But the question pressed at the tip of my tongue and I almost thought about not asking it.

"Hey?" 

"What?" he asked.

"Are you going to attend high school?" I asked.

He looked over at me, "I don't know."

"You should, you should go to Nekoma with me, it's actually really great there."

"Ok, I'll ask my mom."

I smiled, "Alright now you need to put your phone away, it's bad to play on your phone before you sleep."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a twitter account! If you have something to say, but don't want to say it in the comments feel free to contact me there! [https://twitter.com/KittyKellogs](url)


	3. The Time Between

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long chapter! Seriously, it's over 4,000 words and takes up about 13 of 25 pages in my google doc. I'm hoping that more of my chapters will get to this length. It's also written in third person omniscient, and this is the first time that I've done that, so I apologize if it's not that good. Just know that I tried my darndest!

Kenma and Kuroo’s year passes by in a continuum of loops throughout the weeks. Most Wednesdays Kenma doesn’t call Kuroo, he just shows up at his house and stays the night. Sometimes they stay up all night talking about things, the world feels so open during the night. There is no judgement between the two. In the morning the world closes up and school contains them. Until Kenma graduates middle school.

“Congrats, Kenma!” Kuroo said.

Kuroo was thinking about being petty and asking him about going to Nekoma again, but he knew that Kenma’s mother might just explode if he did. She hadn’t been too pleased when Kenma insisted about going to Nekoma, and she was even less pleased when his father agreed with Kenma. Lately, things had not been going her way. But Nekoma was better than other schools.

After many awkward graduation photos with family Kenma wanted to go home and die. It wasn’t high school, it’s just middle school, there’s not a whole lot to celebrate. At home Kuroo wanted to practice volleyball.

“Let’s practice volleyball Kenma! I want to be ahead of the third years by the time that school starts again.”

Kenma, feeling rather tired, denied him.

“I’m too tired, I’ll pass out.”

“Kenma, seriously? I know that you’re not going to pass out.” Kuroo flicked the back of Kenma’s head.

“Kuro!” Kenma protected his head with his hands.

“Come on!”

Kuroo dragged Kenma to the back of his grandparent’s house, where Kuroo and his grandpa had set up a small makeshift net to practice with. Kuroo had done most of the work, but it was getting harder and harder for Kuroo’s grandparents to do things. He was beginning to understand that at least.

Kenma sighed but took off his nice jacket and tie, cringing as he set them down on a weathered lawn chair near the back door. My mom is going to kill me, he thought. He also decided taking off the dress shoes that he was wearing was appropriate. And when he turned around Kuroo looked so happy, even though Kenma didn’t want to get sweaty, seeing Kuroo smile would be worth having to play volleyball everyday.

“I think we should start with some basics since you haven’t played in a bit, ok?”

“Sure,”

“Ready?”

Without even waiting for Kenma to nod his head, Kuroo tossed the ball in Kenma’s direction. As it went up, from Kenma’s, perspective the sun glinted behind the ball, and it seemed as though the whole world was in slow motion. In Kenma’s head he heard a little tick as the world clicked into place and his hands travelled above his head to receive the ball between his hands, setting it towards his waiting partner. Kuroo now was leaping up into the air, ready to strike the ball down onto the nonexistent players on the other side of the net. The ball dropped with a loud thud onto the ground. The moment ended and even though both players had much more stamina to continue they felt, winded. Kuroo smiled crookedly,

“A little off today, nothing some practice couldn’t fix.”

Kuroo droned on about the various ways that they could do better. Talked about techniques that he had learned this year.

“I wish that I played volleyball with you in middle school.” Kenma blurted out.

“Huh?” Kuroo had that stupid blank look on his face.

“Never-mind…” Kenma was looking at his socks.

His socks where now wet with mud and they felt pretty nasty.

“You should play volleyball with me in high school, you can join the club, it’s not too late, we just need to train more over the summer.” Kuroo babbled out.

“I can’t,” Kenma said, “I’m going to my dad’s house for the summer, he is supposed to get me one month of the year, so we split the two weeks for summer vacation, and then some more time around Christmas.”

“Oh,” Kuroo said, “You aren’t going to be here for the summer…”

Kenma was fidgeting with his fingers as he shook his head no. There was severe discontentment between the two, Kuroo slipped under the net and got the ball again. Kenma could smell him, even his underdeveloped senses could tell, he was not happy. Kuroo sighed,

“Maybe we should stop for today,”

That was a big sigh. It made Kenma’s heart hurt a lot.

“I’m sorry,” Kenma’s voice cracked.

Kenma’s eyes were watering, this whole situation had been harder on him than he liked to let on, harder on him than he liked to believe. Kuroo noticed immediately, and he wrapped his arms around his best friend. He pulled away from the hug and held Kenma’s shoulders, they were close like this.  Kenma’s eyes were squinting because of the sun, but they were also glowing a bright golden hue. Nothing could make this moment more perfect, except maybe some functional hair gel and less mud in between their toes. Kuroo leaned down towards Kenma intending to kiss him,

“Kenma!”

They were interrupted.

“Kenma! Please come inside!” Kenma’s mother yelled. “You’re getting your nice clothes dirty!”

Kuroo practically jumped away from him, taking away his perfect lips, Kenma thought.

“We’ll get to see each other at school more often Kuro, that’ll make up for the lost time this summer.” said Kenma. “And my dad doesn’t live terribly far away, about an hour, so we can still hangout if you want to. Right?”

“Yeah,”

Kuroo was at the screen door leading into his house. He didn’t look or feel all that convinced, he didn’t think that Kenma would be willing to travel an hour to see him. Kenma’s anxieties, especially those about travel made him reluctant to go anywhere. And he didn’t really feel comfortable staying at Kenma’s new house. Kenma padded inside, and threw his dirty clothes in the laundry. This sucks.

~ Time Skip Kenma’s New Summer Home ~

After an anxiety ridden hour of travel, he had finally met his father at the train station. After nearly six months without his mom, his father looked much happier. The bags under his eyes were gone, he had lost some weight off of him, and was standing straight and proud, waiting for his son. Kenma embraced his father with a sort of relief, there had been a severe hug withdrawal in this relationship.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

Kenma wasn’t that hungry, his mother made sure that he had eaten breakfast before he left, but usually when his dad asked that it meant that he was hungry. He just didn’t want to say anything. Kenma nodded,

“A little, maybe we can just drop my stuff off at the apartment first though.”

Kenma had drug some luggage onto the train with him, so that he wouldn’t have to take as many clothes next time that he was here. He also took all of his portable gaming systems, for entertainment purposes. His dad was helping him trudge along with the suitcase, he didn’t live too far away from the train station, so it was a short walk to a tall apartment building. As his dad was keying in the pin to access the front doors he talked about finding a better place to live.

“It’s not a permanent home, it’s just until I can get off my feet.” he explained. “Can’t play too much music here, so I need to move.”

Kenma nodded along with what he was saying. Everything was so strange here. When they got up to the third floor, his father’s floor, Kenma noticed how dim the hallways looked. He hoped that this was just temporary, no one could walk down this hallway and feel safe. Kenma’s dad was struggling to unlock the door, it got jammed quite frequently, not to mention he wasn’t particularly eager to show Kenma his new home. Right now it was barren, but cramped at the same time. Big cardboard boxes of instruments yet to be unpacked, the kitchen didn’t smell all that great, but Kenma’s father had never been good at cleaning. Especially, after a meal.

Kenma’s room matched most of the other interior of the house, it had a small mattress without a bed frame in the corner, a desk and a couple little boxes. Kenma did notice that his dad had bought him a new dresser.

“I tried to get a bed frame before you came here, but it’s taking awhile to get here. I need to call the postal company to see where it is…”

“That’s ok, thank you for finding a place with an extra room for me.”

“Yeah,” he leaned up against the doorframe, “Let’s go get something to eat! Shall we?”

He perked up, in a lot of ways Kuroo reminded Kenma of his dad, which grossed him out a lot. But Kenma’s dad was also Kuroo’s main father figure, and Kuroo was the athletic, and social son that Kenma’s dad never got. Once Kuroo heard what he did though, he never felt totally comfortable around Kenma’s dad. It was understandable. Kenma and his dad went out and had a small lunch, then proceeded to sight see many of the new things that weren’t in Tokyo. Later that evening, after dinner, Kenma and his dad were watching TV, when Kenma’s dad decided to hop on the emotions.

“Hey, uh so I know things between your mom and I aren’t all that great, but I want you to know that you can come here if you ever need anything. Anything. If you don’t feel like being around the people in Tokyo, just come here, it’ll be fine.” he said.

“Thank you.” said Kenma.

Kenma didn’t think he would ever need to get away from Tokyo, despite all the people there, it was where he grew up and felt the most comfortable.

“Oh! Also I have a little gift for you, because I missed your graduation.” he said.

“You didn’t need to get me anything, it’s just middle school.” Kenma responded, immense guilt in his heart.

“It’s something small,” he said as he dug around in one of the boxes near the kitchen table.

He pulled out a small leather notebook, and handed it to Kenma.

“It’s a normal notebook, but it’s for song writing, I have one- I’ll go get it and show you.” he rushed off to his room.

Kenma held the notebook in his hand weighing it, it was surprisingly light. Kenma’s father came back in and plopped himself down next to Kenma an identical notebook in his grasp. He held it out for Kenma to look at, it had paper jutting out at all angles and the ends of the spine were beginning to fray. Kenma undid the leather strap keeping the book closed, inside were lyrics to various songs that Kenma’s dad had helped produce. As well as taped in photos and sketches, some dating back to Kenma’s birth, others to his parents wedding.

“Wow,” Kenma looked at his dad.

“Yeah, me and your mom actually used to like each other,” he scoffed, “I don’t even know what happened to us. But this new one is for you, I listened to some of the things that you’ve written and I thought that this would be a good present.”

“Yeah! It is a great present, thank you dad.” Kenma said, and hugged his dad, before they returned to watching TV, Kenma now gripping his new prize.

~ Time Skip to the First Day of School ~

“I made sure that you’re part of the group that I’m showing around the school, so you don’t have to be anxious about the other second years.”

Kuroo was helping Kenma with his anxieties about going to a new school, a big school. Kenma was nodding along with all Kuroo’s reassuring as usual. They were standing near the back of a large throng of first years that were preparing for their entrance ceremony. Kenma hadn’t realized how large and modern this school was until now, and he wanted to run as far away as possible.

“Kuro, I’m fine.” he said.

When they entered the school, one of the staff members tried to offer Kenma a patch. They had mistaken him as an Omega that was marked by an Alpha, which was embarrassing to explain to the staff in front of quite a few of his classmates. A Beta being mistaken for an Omega was an almost considered an insult to Betas. Kenma decided that there was no more sleeping with Kuroo, if this was going to happen. He hadn’t realized that spending so much time at Kuroo’s house probably made them look like a couple, which was such a strange concept. Not something that he would object to, but definitely strange, because it hadn’t been considered in the least bit romantic when they were kids. And they hung out more often back then, slept in each other’s bed back then, and even showered together if they went outside. It wasn’t romantic at all at that time, it was just them being kids. Kenma wished that he could be a kid with Kuroo again.

Kenma’s mother had a talk with him about not presenting, about how it was so strange that he wasn’t presented yet, because he should have by now. All his biology was pointing to him presenting, and his behavior it just made sense. But it really didn’t, if he didn’t present, then whatever.

After their first day Kenma needed to met up with Kuroo after school. Kuroo had wanted to introduce him to some of his volleyball buddies. Kenma wondered around the building for a bit, he had no idea where he was supposed to go, he didn’t know where the gym was at all. And just as he began to get upset he turned a corner and Kuroo was there. He was about to go right up to him when he realized that he was chatting with two first year students. He approached carefully behind Kuroo,

“Ah! Kenma!” Kuroo was shocked at Kenma’s sudden appearance.

Kenma recognized one of the first years, his name was Fukunaga, but he didn’t know the other one. Fukunaga waved at Kenma, who shyly nodded back at him. He was unsure of what to do around people who were not Kuroo.

“These are two first years that want to play for the volleyball team.” explained Kuroo, “That’s Shohei Fukunaga, who you already know, and that’s Yamamoto Taketora.”

Yamamoto shook Kenma’s hand vigorously, “My friends call me Tora!”

“Kenma,” Kenma mumbled.

“Huh?” Tora, unable to hear Kenma’s small voice.

“You can call me Kenma,” he spoke up, slightly irritated.

Irritation reflected back from Tora, but Kuroo was already guiding them to the gym.

“I want to introduce Kenma to Yaku and Kai so we can meet them all together. Then I can give these forms to one of the third years.”

Kuroo didn’t need Kenma starting fights on his first day at Nekoma, especially with someone in the same grade as him. He should be making friends not enemies. In the gym people were already setting up,

“Kuroo! I was worried you weren’t going to show!” shouted one of the third years.

He was wearing the captain’s jersey, but his number was two. There were a lot of other people there as well, only a couple weren’t wearing jerseys. People were coming up to Kuroo and greeting him, Kenma was surprised that he had attracted quite the crowd to himself, considering how quiet he used to be. Kenma was introduced to a blur of people, asking if was going to play, how he knew Kuroo and various other invasive questions. Afterward he remembered hardly any of their names. He tugged on Kuroo’s sleeve,

“I think I’m going to leave now.” he said.

Kenma did not desire to return home to an angry mother.

“Yeah!” Kuroo smiled, “I can walk you to the train station if you want, but I need to be back here for practice.”

Kenma nodded, and they walked together to the school’s entrance.

“There’s a lot of good people there, I think that you could do good. You’re so smart and-”

“I can go the rest of the way home.” Kenma interrupted. “Thanks for introducing me to some of your friends. I know that the volleyball team would be fun, but I can’t play with you. I’m sorry…”

“It’s ok,” Kuroo said.

Kenma arrived home to his mom who was much happier than he had anticipated her being. He soon found out why,

“Kenma! You’ve been accepted into an agency!” she exclaimed.

She showed him emails that she got about him. They were already talking about training, and pulling him from Nekoma. Kenma’s knees felt weak. For a variety of reasons. Firstly, he had been auditioning for companies for a little less than a year, and each rejection email felt like a weight to his dancing and singing. Secondly, the first thing that he noticed in the email is that they wanted to pull him out of school.

“Mom, I told you I want to go to school. I want to attend Nekoma.” he said.

“Kenma, are you serious? This is a great opportunity for you!”

“Yeah, I’m serious,” he said, “I want to accept this opportunity, but I don’t want to give up school to do so.”

She seemed disappointed, but agreed with Kenma after he listed his reasons for wanting to attend and graduate high school. He then went to his room to play games, but he couldn’t focus. He texted Kuroo to ask if he could go over to his house. It took Kuroo three hours to reply, in that three hours Kenma decided to look up the company that had accepted his audition. The company’s name was Crimson Idol, they were a newer company. They had debuted two other idol groups. The groups had unique concepts, but were met with lukewarm feedback from the public. They were successful in that they were gaining public attention gradually.

Kenma clicked on some of their music videos. They weren’t really up to today’s standard of music video, but the quality wasn’t the worst. A clear effort had been put in with the music production and some of the members vocals were actually amazing. He began watching live video performances after that and was pretty impressed with the live vocals as well. They must have trained hard, was one of Kenma’s first thoughts. So much energy… he flopped back onto the bed, he couldn’t believe that he would be up to par with these people by the time that they wanted him to debut. If he ever did that. Kenma fell asleep not long before Kuroo texted him back, and Kuroo called to make sure that he was ok. The call was what woke Kenma up,

“Hello?” his voice was hoarse from sleep.

“Kenma? Are you ok?” he asked.

“Hmm?”

Kenma was just now remembering his text to Kuroo.

“Oh I forgot I texted you earlier, I fell asleep. I’ll just stay here tonight, sorry.”

“It’s ok… was there a reason?”

“My mom found an agency, they want me to start training soon.” Kenma said, “They almost got me out of school.”

“Oh, but you said no right?”

“Mostly, I just told her that I didn’t want to quit school.” Kenma said.

“Good. I’ll let you go now, good night Kenma.”

Kuroo almost let an ‘I love you’ slip, but decided against it.

“Good night.”

Kuroo hung up and flopped down on his bed. He liked introducing Kenma to all his friends this afternoon, they talked about how Kenma did smell like Kuroo. They didn’t seem as disgusted as he thought they would by his attraction to Kenma either. It was sort of testing the waters before he dived in. Maybe if they had been born fifty years in the past they would’ve been met with a lot of criticism, but now under a little bit more of an accepting society they could be met with understanding. He hoped. He never expected Kenma to present as an Omega and he didn’t expect him to present as an Alpha either. Betas took up 50% of the population, it makes sense that he wouldn’t present.

From that evening onward Kenma no longer had free time after school. He went immediately from school to his new home in a dance studio. He worked on vocals, dance and most of all he worked on his public speaking. Kenma was an anxious person, and it was hard to pull himself out of his shell, but eventually talking became a normal thing for him to do with strangers. He would get woken up by Kuroo every morning, and he was exhausted.

When Kenma was in school he sat himself down next to Fukunaga and they talked, mostly Fukunaga talked at Kenma. Sometimes Tora was there, Kenma and Tora clashed frequently, but it was a friendly rivalry more so than enemy relationship. Kenma’s mother had tried talking to the principal about changing his schedule so that he could get closer to debuting sooner, but the principal said no. He told her that all first years had to stay through the entire first year. It was supposed to teach something like dedication. A total bullshit rule, but one that gave Kenma a good safety net.

There was a couple days a month that they told him to rest and on those days Kenma tried his best to meet up with Kuroo for a bit. He rarely saw him at all during the school day or on weekends any longer. He felt like there was a giant canyon separating him from his best friend, but he knew that it would be closed if he spent some of his free time with him. Kuroo himself was also busy, between club activities, homework and having a social life he could barely keep up with it all. So he felt bad when the only time that he could meet up with Kenma on his day off was between the end of school and the start of a volleyball club meeting. Kuroo left his class a little early under the guise that he was going to use the restroom. He caught Kenma on his way out, and walked with him to go back to his classroom and get his things that he left there.

They talked about Kenma’s training, which he seemed happy with, he had put most of his free time into all the training, so Kuroo hoped he would be happy. Something that surprised Kuroo was that Kenma wanted to know when his next games were. He wanted to watch him, since he couldn’t play. Kuroo was very happy about this development. He told him that he would have to come with him to the gym to get a list of the dates. Kuroo didn’t have to take him to the gym, because he had all the dates for Nekoma’s volleyball matches memorized, but he wanted to take him anyway.

He consulted with the third years and got Kenma a schedule for all their games. He pointed out the ones that he thought would be the most interesting to watch and then it was time for practice, so Kenma left to go home and rest. He’d probably end up playing video games until late in the night, his sleep schedule was beyond messed up at this point.

On Kenma’s next day off he went to one of the matches that Kuroo had suggested that he go to. It was one against a school called Fukurodani, they were nationally ranked one of the best athletic schools in the nation. So it was natural that seeing them up against Kuroo made Kenma nervous but excited. He hadn’t seen one of Kuroo’s games live in a long time. Kenma sat close to the Nekoma student section, this wasn’t a particularly important game, so there weren’t an abundance of people there for Nekoma. In the Fukurodani side there were quite a few people.

Kenma shared his row with one other person, he assumed that he was a student from Fukurodani, because he was wearing a uniform, and he had a notebook and pencil in hand with him. He looked super focused so Kenma didn’t disturb him, Kuroo did.

“KENMA!! KENMAAA!” Kuroo screamed, and waved his hands frantically to get Kenma’s attention.

Kenma buried his face in his hands, why was his life like this? He wondered. The student at the other end of the row stared at Kenma. He gave thanks that he didn’t have any loud friends. Kenma waved back at Kuroo with one of his hands still covering his face. He should’ve known that his would happen. He really should’ve known.

After Kenma’s regularly scheduled public humiliation, he found himself getting into the gameplay easily. He already knew the rules of the game, and even recognized some of the plays that Kuroo had taught him. He was so intently focused on the game that he did not notice that the Fukurodani student was moving to sit next to him. Kenma had his own small way of cheering for Nekoma. When they did well Kenma would smile his little evil smile, and when they messed up he would make a hissing sound and mutter what part of the play that they messed up. The student next to him was listening to Kenma while watching the game. He was adding Kenma’s input to his report, marveling at how well Kenma new the game.

When the whistle rang out after the final set and Nekoma lost Kenma was on his feet immediately. He didn’t know how to get to Kuroo at that moment, but he knew that he was going to get there somehow. Not without first noticing how close the other student had gotten to him though, he thought that was a little creepy. As the person stood up he caught a glance at the name on his notebook, Akaashi Keji. Kenma turned stiffly and began his descent to find Kuroo.

It didn’t take Kenma long to find Kuroo, he was talking with someone from the opposing team. Kuroo was chatting with Bokuto Koutarou, a friend that he had met at training camp over the summer. They kept in contact afterward, and have become great buddies, even though they were not able to meet up that often. Kuroo spotted Kenma before Kenma could see him,

“Kenma!” he called him over, abruptly halting his conversation with Bo.

“Ah, Kuro!”

Kenma had no plan on what he was going to say to Kuroo he just knew that he must be disappointed to have lost a game.

“You did good!” he blurted out clumsily.

“Thanks,” Kuroo was taken back by Kenma’s compliment.

He didn’t receive many from Kenma. He moved over to introduce Kenma to Bo, and by the end of Bo’s first meeting with Kenma, he already managed to get his phone number. Kenma was quite flustered from Bokuto’s naturally happy charm, he was loud but Kenma surprisingly found himself not all that bothered, even with the overwhelming Alpha scent that he gave off. Kuroo did notice that Kenma was smiling a whole lot around Bo, it was a smile that he had never seen him use on anyone else. That's fake as hell Kuroo thought, but if someone had never known Kenma they wouldn't know that smile was fake.

“Did you want to go to the team dinner with us?” asked Kuroo.

He could tell by Kenma’s face that he did not want to go at all. But Kenma shrugged,

“I don’t know…” he said, “I think that would be a little invasive.”

“Hmm, not really, but if you don’t want to go you don’t have to. I want to at least walk you to the train station.” Kuroo said, “There’s no need for you to get lost out here.”

Before Kenma left, he waved goodbye to the Nekoma team, and followed Kuroo to the train station. There was a small group of Nekoma students that were there from the game. Kenma followed closely behind that group of students on the way home. He hoped that he could go to more of Kuroo’s games in the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that wasn't painful for anyones brain! I know it's a lot of text! If you have any feedback about this chapter let me know in the comments and if you want to private message me about any concerns that you have you can reach me at this [Twitter](https://twitter.com/KittyKellogs)


	4. The Debut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Sexualization of a minor!! It's not a huge part of it nor is it encouraged by any of the characters in this series.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof Kuroo gay panics in this chapter! Also I don't know why, but this chapter was excruciating to write, I stayed up until 1:40 in the morning trying to finish this in time. It's truly not my best work, so I'll definitely be going back into this chapter and sculpting it out a little more. This chapter is also setting the baseline for a lot of future... angsty events to happen.

Weeks were counting down until summer, and as the time shrunk my anxieties grew. I have been training at Crimson Idol’s rented out dance studio for nearly nine months, and everyday is more exhausting than the next. I fidgeted with my phone on the way over to the studio, not able to focus on my games. The train was full of students, as school had just let out, but I felt alone. I miss going home with Kuro, and actually feeling like his friend. Lately, we’ve been distant from each other, because both of us are busy with our separate activities.

When I entered the studio the receptionist didn’t even look up at me. This place was so familiar it felt like a second home. Crimson Idol rented out two rooms for training, and my dance teacher was in one of the rooms. Dancing wasn’t the worst, but it was never the best either. She always pushed me past my limits, every single time. Today, as usual we started with stretches, she would push down on various parts of my body with all of her weight.

“Alright, now to work your middle split.” she said.

My middle split had come quite a ways since I started training at Crimson Idol, but it isn’t complete yet. So I spread my legs out as far as I could stretch them on my own, and then she came and pushed down on my back. When she pushed down on me it felt like my legs were being split apart, like they were going to break right where they connected. I gasped out of pain, but I’ve been through this exercise a million times before. My hands were balled up on the floor, my nails pinching the skin of my palms.

“Oh!” she got up, “You did it Kenma!!”

She was clapping, I felt like my legs were broken, but when I folded them in they worked as usual.

“This is good progress, you will soon be as capable as the other dancers that come in here.” she said, with a smile.

I nodded, and got up feeling weak. She suggested that I learn a new dance today, and we worked until midnight, taking small breaks every once in awhile. Shortly after practice I left to catch one of the last trains that goes to the stop near my house.

“Good night Kenma, have a safe ride home!” she said.

“And you,”

She stayed later than I did most days, maybe she lives there now. The train had almost no one in it at this point, there was the occasional drunk that stumbled in, but I was left alone for the most part.

Shampoo. Rinse. Repeat.

Near the end of the year they dyed my hair a light brown, and decided that it was time to shoot a music video. The video was shot in 24 hours straight, and I remember almost none of the details of what happened that day. They informed that we were being sponsored by a closely affiliated company called BlueWater Energy, an energy drink company that would make small cameos throughout the video. The drink was surprisingly good, so I was happy that it was being promoted, even though an energy drink company and an idol company didn’t have a whole lot in common.

The day after the music video shooting Kuro was very shocked about my new hair color. I had the privilege of going home to rest that day.

“Eh!! What did they do to your hair?” He asked, he rubbed some strands between his fingers.

“Is it ugly?” I asked.

“No!” his face was red, “Just unexpected.”

A week later, the day that school released for summer break, the music video released. I was surprised that the video was edited so fast, with so little promotion. Perhaps this is why their groups don’t do as well as they should… the media team was surprised that within a day the video had reached one million views. I didn’t manage my social media pages, I never have had to, but even I knew that the reason that the video blew up so widely was because people hated me. My manager, Teika told me that it was because they hadn’t “officially met me,” which made no sense. Until I got my first interview, then I discovered what it was like to meet the public.

My whole life I’ve been a part of the public, eating away at the endless distractions that the entertainment industry fed me. Being a part of the entertainment industry that provides that thought-food for a mass audience had never occurred to me to be different. I felt like a little doll clutched in the hands of a large, powerful giant, and that I was being dangled above a tank of sharks.

A week later the video was at 20 million views, and I was attending all sorts of events. Outdoor concerts, variety shows, and a commercial for BlueWater Energy. It was a blur, and I didn’t get to see or talk to anyone but my manager throughout most of the week. Then the schedule began to slow down, because I didn’t have a lot of songs to promote, only three for a mini album.

My chaotic schedule was frequently put to a stop by school, because every month I was required to go to school for a week. That is if I want to remain enrolled in school at Nekoma. My company decided to do the schooling all at once at the end of each month. 

Looking at the building now, Nekoma High School is so much more intimidating than a stadium of 5,000 people. As I walked in someone decided shoulder checking me was an appropriate thing to do. Kuroo wasn’t with me because I was dropped off at school from Yokohama. I’d spent most of the day yesterday reading through paperwork with my manager. And the whole day my stomach had ached and I felt sweaty when I was cold, but today was much better. Even if I wasn’t feeling that great skipping school was not an option. I moved to the side of the walkway so that I could text Kuro, when I heard someone call my name. I looked around,

“Ah Tora,”

He smiled, “How’s the idol life Kenma?”

“Tiring,”

He laughed, and we began walking into the school together. Tora chatted idly about volleyball and seeing me on the TV, when some kids, they looked like first years past by me, mimicking some of the movements from one my dances. I watched them as they walked by, when they thought they were out of my sight they laughed. I hadn’t realized at the time of recording the song the… things that the song implied. Later when I was learning the dance I realized the nature of the song, it was embarrassing that I had been so naive about it. Eventually I got used to it, I forgot that other people weren’t. Tora looked angry,

“Hey! Why don’t you learn some respect huh?” he yelled.

“Tora, please stop,” I said and tugged him along.

Tora had always had a temper, it was something that normally I picked at, but he was never angry for real. At least he was composed when he was play fighting with me, but now his face was red, and his hand were clenched in fists at his sides.

“Why are you so angry?” I asked. “It’s not that big of a deal,” 

“When people make fun of my friends, it’s a big deal,” he said with finality. “We’re in the same class this year, but Fukunaga isn’t.”

I nodded, “I miss seeing you two in the morning.”

“Let’s just sit down, we have a seating arrangement but class hasn’t started yet.”

“I have special assignments to turn in, do you think I should go turn them in now?”

I then remembered that I had a presentation to do today. The principal would be there, he wanted to see my academic progress. My stomach dropped, and the sweatiness came back almost instantly.

“I don't know I've- Are you ok?” he asked, “Your face is chalk white.”

“Yeah, I’m fine, I just remembered that I have to do a presentation for class today.”

“You’re nervous for that? After performing in front of so many people?”

Suddenly the bell rang, I jumped, and felt a wave of nausea seeth through me.

“I should go find a seat,” I murmured.

Tora pointed at a seat near the door, “The teacher didn’t want anyone sitting there at the beginning of the year, but there’s no extra seats besides that one now.”

I sat down in my new seat, and laid my head against the desk. It was cool and alleviated my stress a little. The teacher walked in, she was a gentle looking lady and she smiled at me.

“It’s nice to meet you Kozume,” she shook my hand.

“You too,” I smiled weakly, sitting up straight.

“We’ll get your presentation over with, that way you don’t have to wait all of class to do it.” she said and walked over the podium at the front of the classroom.

When she got up there the class had already quieted down, and was settled in their seats. She took attendance and told them a few announcements before calling down to the office for the principal. I had memorized a short three minute speech and brought a couple images with me to pass around the room while I talked. The principal got here shortly after she called him and I handed the images to the person next to me,

“Can you pass these?” I asked.

They nodded and I went up to the podium. I began my speech, mostly going on autopilot when I did. About halfway through I felt pain pooling up in my pelvic area, and my talking faltered.

“So-” I leaned against the podium, crossing my legs over one another, “So I- I want to-”

The teacher was looking at me rather concerned, before a look of clarity crossed her face. She stood up,

“Thank you Kenma!” she rushed to the front of the room.

She then escorted me to the nurses office, it felt like my whole body was on fire. The nurse sat me down and told me that she would need one of my parent’s consent to give me a shot to help me with this.

“I don’t know what this is,” I told her. “I feel like I’m dying.”

“It’s your heat, you’re presenting, so I have to get in contact with one of your guardians, do you know who would be home right now who could give me consent for this pheromone control shot?” she asked.

“My mom,” I said.

After two attempts to call my mom, the nurse finally received consent for me to get the shot. The physical relief was instantaneous, but I felt no emotional relief. The nurse handed me pamphlets about being an Omega, the laws, how to deal with heats, pheromones, and other subjects. My mom picked me up from the school, and took me home in her new car. She bought it sometime after my songs release. The new car smell was overwhelming and I sat there in a daze most of the way home. Once at home she left me alone in my room, the nurse told me that the shot would only last for a day, and that the pain would most likely return tomorrow. We couldn’t do much about me being in heat until the heat was finished. She told me that, thankfully, after the first heat the others were not painful.

I sat in my room thinking mostly about Kuro for the week. What he would think about this, he had enough common sense not to visit my house at least. I assume he heard about what happened from Tora. My mom texted my manager about me presenting, she was lukewarm on the subject, saying that it’s not terrible just a little more troublesome than him being a Beta. She also told my mom that the school considered my absence a medical excuse and that I could skip out of the rest of the week without having to worry about going to school for this month. Then she told me the less exciting things about the finishing interviews and performances for my promotional period. However after those interviews and performances, I get a month of rest.

My interviews as an Omega were eye opening for me. There were a lot of Alpha idols, interviewers and TV personalities, they could all smell me. I felt like a child, because of how new all of the sensations were to me. As someone who was unpresented for a long time I couldn’t distinguish the “moods” of how someone smelled. Alphas had their scents, but they were always the same scent, however now they had a scent, but it varied. The scents had different moods, and as I noticed more Omegas the same reigned true for them as well.

The media also had their own little outrage about me presenting. Some people said it was fake, others came up with conspiracies, and some people were just angry about it. There were not mass numbers of Omega idols in the entertainment industry. Omegas aren’t supposed to be idols, it’s too easy for an Omega to slip into a comfortable lifestyle. Too easy for them to be like me and have a… spicy public image even if I didn’t want it.

The rest of the schedule only lasted for two and a half weeks, then I went home for a resting period. The resting period was a shorter one than what my rest periods would normally be, because they wanted me back on stage soon. Which I was fine with, I found myself greatly enjoying being on stage performing. Performing never lasted as long as I wanted it to. I thought about performing while sitting in the living room playing games. Playing multiplayer games online was an even more fun thing to do now. I heard the screen door open, and looked up.

“Oh Kuro,”

He smelled like… sandalwood, I only know what sandalwood smells like from my mother’s candle obsession. The scent made me lightheaded. I stood up dropping my controller on the coach and Kuro embraced me, his grip tightened on me when he breathed in.

“You presented,” he said.

“Kuro,” I said, he was squeezing my rib cage.

He released his grip on me, and sat down.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. “I mean I found out, but still.”

I sat next to him, “I don’t know, I guess I didn’t think about it.”

“You smell totally different now, not even like you.”

“Oh, sorry I guess.”

“No, sorry I’m- I’m not angry about it, I actually think that you smell nice. Not that you’ve smelled bad before this, but this is ok.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling my face heat up.

I picked up my controller again and read through some of the messages on my game. There were some people who were upset about my sudden disappearance. I turned off the TV,

“What have you been doing?” I asked, pulling out my phone to play a game that was a little less noisy then the TV.

After that Kuro began chatting about his day, and volleyball and this new idiot first year. We settled into our normal, comfortable positions with each other. Eventually, because of my mom’s absence we moved into the kitchen to make food. Through most of the cooking I sat and watched. Kuro was a good cook, but he got ahead of himself a lot, so sometimes he would be too impatient. I made sure that he kept himself on track.

“I have the month off, when is your next game? I wanna go.” I said.

Kuro didn’t respond, I glanced up, we made eye contact before I looked away again. Why is he being so embarrassing? I’m always a very blunt person with my friends, but Kuro was not. Sometimes he was a little too scared of what his friends think of him to be totally honest about himself, which is not something that I entirely understand. There was clearly something bothering him that he wasn’t willing to tell me.

“Is there something wrong Kuro?” I asked.

“No! No, sorry I missed you a lot when you were gone. I’m happy to see you back at home I guess.” he said.

I shrugged it off, if he wasn’t going to tell me then it’s not my problem. He mocked my shoulder shrug until I threw a spoon at him, then he got serious.

“Hey, wait, I did have something to say that was important.” he said, sitting the spoon down next to him.

“What?”

I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach, it’s probably a lecture or a stupid speech he came up with.

“I saw your debut and I just- I might be stepping over the line here, but I don’t think that you should let your agency sexualize you like that. It’s hard to watch, you're only 15.” he said, “I know that sounds like an adult thing to say, but I would be wary of the people who came up with those things for you to do, please.”

“I trust them, I think they know what they’re doing, and if they thought that this was unsafe they wouldn’t allow me to do it.” I said.

Kuro didn’t object, just turned to check the timer on the stove.

“Ok, I think we’re done cooking for the night.” the timer rang.

“Do you think your mom would mind if I stayed over for the night?” Kuro asked later on, “I feel too lazy to go home.”

“I don’t think she would care.” I said.

I was putting the dishes we used on a drying rack. Kuro had cooked most of the meal, so I cleaned up most of it afterward. Kuro slept with me in my bed that night, I was facing him and could tell that he was nearly asleep.

“Kuro?” I whispered.

He shifted, “What? I’m trying to sleep…”

“I think that I like you, as more than a friend.”

His body jerked, but he didn’t say anything for the rest of the night. I fell asleep shortly after telling him. The next day Kuro was gone before I woke up, but he had left his hoodie behind on the end of the bed. I crawled to the end of the bed and picked up the hoodie to smell it, it’s mine now. I hid it on the ground in my closet. Later that day, after Kuro finished with school and club activities he came back.

“Hey I left my hoodie right here…” he said, pointing at the end of my bed.

“Oh,” I said. “Did you look under the bed? Maybe it fell.”

“You took it didn’t you?” Kuro asked after looking under the bed.

I peeked out at him from under my console, and shook my head.

“Kenma you can’t lie to me,” he laughed. “It’s ok that you took it.”

My eyes went wide, Kuro!! Saying things like that? I had read in one of the pamphlets that nesting was an act of intimacy on both parts if the Alpha accepted the Omega. I guess I shouldn’t be so embarrassed since I’m the one who initiated the act. Kuro looked away, seemingly very concerned about the paint on my walls.

“Did you want to come with me to my game? You mentioned last night about going to another one.” he said. “I have one tomorrow, it’s not against Fukurodani, but Bokuto will be there because he plays earlier and wants to watch.”

“Sure,”

The next day after school I met up with Kuro at the train station, and the whole team was there. I met the new first year students, and caught up with Fukunaga as well. At the game I didn’t want to sit next to Bokuto, because he was loud, but I did spot the boy named Akaashi again and sat next to him. Akaashi didn’t look me in the eye and seemed like a nervous person overall. I felt a little nervous sitting next to him too, it was one of my first times in public as an Omega. He fidgeted with the journal in his hand.

“You have nice feedback of the game, you would be a really strategic player.” he told me before it was time to go.

“Thank you.” I said.

This time Nekoma won, and they were having a celebration dinner. They invited Bokuto and I along with them. It was a fun time, until my manager called.

“Hey, Kenma,” she said, “I just wanted to let you know that the CEO wants to host a party for the success of your comeback, so we have a little celebration set up for the end of your break. It’s not a big party, but you can invite  _ some _ friends, not a lot of people, if you want to.”

“Ah, sure I’ll probably just take my mom and one friend if that’s ok.” I said.

I had taken myself into an isolated corner of the room to answer the call, and Kuro was looking at me suspiciously. He walked over after I hung up,

“What was that about?” he asked.

“It was just my manager, we’re having a party to celebrate my successful debut.” I explained, “Did you want to go?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I made a twitter, so if you have some feedback, questions or you just want to contact me in a more private manner you can reach me here [Twitter](https://twitter.com/KittyKellogs)


	5. A Wrong Turn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were many mistakes in this chapter and so much miscommunication. This is really where the angst starts coming in.

Shoes squeaked as we dashed around the court, keeping our ball alive. It was becoming a late night practice again, all of us exhausted, but still determined. Our volleyball team was throwing ourselves full force this year, with the uprising of our rival team Karasuno. We needed to whip the first years into shape, and that’s exactly what I was doing. As team captain, it was my responsibility to carry the team to victory, a final one at Nekoma for me. The ball was hit up in the air by Yaku, saving it at the last second, Teshiro then set the ball. 

“Nice job Teshiro!” I yelled.

Teshiro had taken immense leaps in terms of skill throughout the year, he was shaping up to become an excellent player. Tora leapt up and spiked the ball directly down onto Lev’s face, it ricocheted off of his face and directly into the middle of the net.

“NICE RECEIVE!” I yelled between laughs.

“Your laugh is the most obnoxious thing I’ve ever heard.” said Yaku.

“I’m choosing as captain to ignore what you just said.”

“I think we should wrap up for the night,” Lev said, rubbing his forehead.

“That’s not what a real ace would say!” Tora yelled from across the room.

“No, he’s right for once, let’s get cleaned up and then go home.”

I clapped my hands together, and we got to work gathering up our mess. And after we walked together for a while, not for long until we all went our separate ways. Teshiro lived near Kenma and I, so we rode the same train home.

“Have you seen Kozume Kenma’s debut video?” asked Teshiro.

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen it.” I said.

I don’t believe Teshiro knows that I’m friends with Kenma, he mentioned something about seeing Tokyo Tower for the first time at the beginning of the year. It was probably because he was an Omega, lots of Omegas tended to flock to Nekoma because Nekoma doesn’t have extra rules that work against Omegas. Most schools still had extra classes that Omega’s were required to take to graduate, that Alphas and Betas were not. Extra classes, dress codes, patches, and exams, the list could go on. Omegas had just recently gotten their rights to an education, so the school districts, that were run by Alphas and Betas were working as hard as they could against Omegas.

“Did you like it? I thought he was an Omega when I first saw him, because of how short he looks.”

“I didn’t really like it, he’s too young for a concept like that.”

“Oh, how old is he?” asked Teshiro.

“He’s fifteen,”

Teshiro paused then decided to ignore that comment, “Did you know that he goes to our school?”

“Mhm, I sure did,” I said.

I didn't see the big deal about him going to our school, because our school was one of the few willing to work with an idol schedule for idols to continue their education. We were silent most of the ride home after that, partially because every time that I thought about Kenma’s comeback I felt angry, and Teshiro could smell that. All that work to get into a fucking company, and his mom decides to have him out there on his own, with these adults who obviously don’t care about him at all. He’s a kid, just a child. At our stop Teshiro waved me goodbye, and we went our separate ways. My phone buzzed around in my pocket a couple times,

Kenma msg: coming home for school next week

I bounced up and down outside the house, before texting him back.

Me: Sweet!!

~ Time Skip to the Confession ~

Kenma’s room smelled like roses now, it was quite a contrast to what his room smelled like before. It tasted like heart candies in my mouth, dusty and sweet. Kenma was, as he usually does, taking five years to get ready for bed. Smelling his sheets was grossly arousing, and I needed him to hurry out of the bathroom so that I could get to sleep. Kenma’s bed was shoved into a corner in his room and he liked sleeping on the side closest to the wall, but hated having to climb over me to get to sleep. I played on my phone until Kenma was done, just sitting and getting used to his new smell. It was shocking to most people for Kenma to present, he was late presenting, normally Omegas don’t present after 14. It’s not unheard of though.

Kenma emerged from the bathroom, his hair freshly brushed was still a little frazzled at the ends. He switched off the lights, grabbed his phone and clambered into bed. It wasn’t his week off, it was well after his week off now. He was taking a break between comebacks, but he never went to school, only on the five days that were required of him.

“Don’t get on your phone it’s time to sleep,” I said, as I settled under the covers.

“I can’t sleep at normal times like this, just ignore me.” he said.

“Hmm I could never,” I responded, setting my glasses down on the bed side table.

I didn’t want to bother him too much with school, because he was constantly working anyway. It didn’t seem right for me to force him to go somewhere when he was so exhausted all of the time. It’s time to stop thinking so much, and start sleeping. As I was nearing the point in sleep where I was teetering on unconsciousness, I couldn’t help but be conscious of the eyes focused on the back of my head. Kenma was watching me, I could feel it.

“Kuro?” he asked.

“What? I’m trying to sleep…” I said, the atmosphere felt quite tense all of the sudden.

“I think that I like you, as more than a friend.”

It was barely more than a whisper but my mind went totally blank. Kenma… 

I left my sweatshirt in his room the next day. Maybe as an apology or something for not responding to his obvious confession to me. He accepted it, because he took it, probably into his closet or bathroom. Though he did seem embarrassed about it in the end. He went to another one of my games on his break too. It was the only one that he could attend this month, sadly it was one I knew wasn’t going to be all that interesting. After winning Nekomata said that he wanted to treat us with a team dinner.

“What was that about?” I asked him at the dinner.

He had taken himself to a corner of the room, away from everyone else when his phone started to ring.

“It was just my manager, we’re having a party to celebrate my successful debut. Did you want to go?”

“Uh sure,” I said.

“It’s not a big party or anything, I can introduce you to my manager and some people on my team.”

When we went home on the train Teshiro introduced himself to Kenma, he was excited to meet an idol. Kenma put on the wonderful fake smile that he learned from his training. He’s such a performer now, I almost want to call him out for it. Once the train stopped and Teshiro went his separate way, I talked to Kenma about the party.

“I’ve never been to a party like this, should I dress formally?” I asked.

“I don't think you've ever been to a party besides your own.” he scoffed, "And no just dress nicer than casual."

“Did you want to have a party?” I asked, ignoring his teasing.

Kenma shrugged, “Not particularly, but it won’t be that terrible. I’ve learned that a lot of things aren’t that terrible most of the time.”

The next day, Saturday, when I went over to Kenma’s house he had invited over Tora and Fukunaga. They were in the living room playing games together while Kenma’s mom was at work.

“It’s not even fun to challenge you at this point, because I know that I’m going to lose anyway.” said Tora.

“That’s because you’re a loser,” Kenma responded.

I sat myself down on the arm of the couch next to Kenma, watching them play. Tora soon noticed me,

“Wow you look nice,” he said.

Fukunaga looked up at me, stared for a couple seconds before nodding and looking back at the TV screen. Kenma’s grade is so weird… 

“Thanks,”

Kenma needed to get ready for the party, but it honestly looked like he might not have even brushed his teeth yet today. He was dressed in PJs, with his hair thrown up into a mass on the top of his head.

“You should probably get ready soon Kenma.”

“Mhm…”

Kenma didn’t make a move to stand up, so I pushed on his shoulder. Kenma looked up at me astonished, as his character slid away from its path and died promptly after.

“Kuro!” he smacks me on the arm.

It’s not a hard smack, but enough that I almost lost my balance. I pull on his sleeve,

“Come on, let’s get you ready,”

Kenma flushed but began to stand up at my nagging anyway. I was surprised that he didn’t have some sort of sassy remark to say back to me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Tora making a face,

“Alright I’m leaving before this gets weird,” he said.

He stood up and Fukunaga followed him to the door looking back at me before rushing out. I shrugged, Fukunaga was one of the stranger people I knew. Tora always claimed that he had unconscious psychic abilities, but I think that was all because he was much better at listening than Tora was. Kenma was already down the hallway by the time that they left, I wasn’t actually going to dress him, it was meant as a stupid joke. Which I think he knew. Kenma's mother drove us to the party, in her new car. She has made quite the investment out of her child.

It was surprisingly comfortable there, they had couches and chairs, there was a TV playing some random movie, and best of all, there were not that many people there yet. Kenma clung to my side most of the night, he introduced me to a couple of people, he couldn’t find his manager anywhere, mostly though we sat together. There’s never been a time more than now that I wanted to confess my feelings to Kenma. He was nestled close to me, I could vaguely catch his new scent in small whiffs, his skin was illuminated against the dim lighting. His eyes were shiny and he seemed happy, idly talking about a new game that his manager had bought him.

A strange woman came over and sat next to Kenma, she looked like the kind of character in a TV series that would emerge from the sewers, her hair tied tightly up into a bun, her eyes were a stark black, and she leaned in close to whisper into Kenma’s ear. She glanced over at me while she was talking, I couldn’t help but feel a little creeped out by the slimy smile that grew on her face. I assume that she's Kenma's manager.

“I’m going to borrow Kozume from you for a couple minutes, alright?” she said, “You can go get a drink from the bar if you would like.”

She tugged Kenma off the couch and they disappeared from my sight. No drinking for me. I don’t know how many people were actually invited to the party, but it seemed that it was picking up a little bit more traction now that it was getting later. I messed around with my phone on the couch for awhile, before a couple of people sat down next to me in Kenma’s spot. Having no desire to introduce myself I decided to wander over to the bar, the bartender raised an eyebrow at me but continued his work when I sat down.

“Ah, Kuroo,” Kenma’s mom approached me. “I think I’m going to head out now, ok?”

“Yeah, sure.” I nodded at her.

“Make sure to keep an eye on Kenma for me please, and don’t go drinking irresponsibly.” she chided. “I’ll see you tomorrow Kuroo!”

She gives me a hug goodbye and then headed towards the exit. The universe has great irony, because only a couple minutes later, I see Kenma stumbling over towards me and into the chair next to me. His face is flushed, and he was smiling, I could smell alcohol on him even as far away as I was. Kenma leaned in so that his face was buried into my shoulder,

“Kurooooooo…” he said, his words muffled by my jacket.

“Kenma what the hell?” I asked.

He shrugged without moving his head, “I don’t know how this happened…”

“Maybe we should go home…” I said.

“Nooo, I don’t wanna go home,” he responded, “I just want to stay here forever please.”

“Let’s get some water in you then, that way you’re not just drinking alcohol,”

I realized soon after that I didn’t have my wallet with me, I must have left it at home or in the car, which made me nervous because that meant I had no money at all to get home let alone buy Kenma a glass of water. How could this happen? I need to call Kenma’s mom… or maybe his dad is closer? Kenma wrapped his arms around me, snuggling further into my arm. It was getting more difficult to focus with him like this.

“Kenma, you need to stop,” I said firmly, taking his arms off of me.

When he pulled away he seemed upset, really upset. His eyebrows were pinching together, and his lips were trembling. I felt shock,

“Hey, I’m so-”

“Maybe you should go home Kuro,” he said focusing his gaze onto the ground.

He turned the chair so that he could stand, but I caught his wrist before his feet even hit the floor.

“I don’t want to go home, I also don’t want you to regret this tomorrow though,”

“No, you should leave,” he insisted, “I have to be here until the party is done anyway.”

I felt the first nips of irritation at my core. His sudden change in mood was completely unnecessary.

“Hey, I’m only trying to help.” I told him a little frustration showing in my voice.

“I don’t need it.” he yanked his wrist away, and shook his head.

I looked at him in disbelief, a deeply set anger that I hadn’t ever felt before surged up, I stood up and made a beeline for the door. I don’t care if I have to walk home tonight, I can’t put up with this. When I was near the exit the same lady from earlier, stopped me, handed me some cash and then tapped my shoulder. She gave me a smile, then turned to walk towards Kenma, whose head was in his hands. I took a deep breath trying to control the anger that I was feeling.

As soon as I stepped into the cold night, I felt the anger begin to dissipate. Many Alphas tended to have anger problems, because they felt entitled to everything. They felt like the world owed them the Omega that they wanted, and that they earned the right to value their own feelings over the feelings of everyone else. That’s not something that I had ever felt, so I’d never felt the thing that was deemed Alpha entitlement. I don’t know why I felt so angry all of a sudden at Kenma. Maybe it was because he was being irresponsible, or maybe it’s because I feel like he’s being difficult. I don’t know, all I know is I had a great urge to violently punch the counter next to him and that scared me.

After that night Kenma and I didn’t talk much anymore. When I visited him Sunday afternoon, I found him curled up in his bed. I had bought a slice of apple pie as an apology to him, but he didn’t even move when I sat it down next to him. He may have just been tired but I couldn’t help but be concerned that something may have happened. When I was on the bus ride home Kenma sent me his location, obviously having just left him there I knew where he was. I sent him question marks back, but he hadn't opened the message himself yet.

“Kenma?” I whispered.

I was sitting at the edge of his bed, trying to mind his space. He was facing the wall his hair a tangled mess protecting his face from my sight, it smelled vaguely like freshly cut grass which I realized later was the smell of chlorophyll. The scent that dying roses tend to take on. He was still wearing the clothes from the night before, which I knew couldn't be comfortable for him to wear.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

He nodded quietly, but didn’t say anything to me.

“Did something happen after I… went home last night?” I asked, almost dreading any response that came from him.

He shook his head no, but still didn’t say anything to me. He was silent so I sat on one of the beanbags on the floor next to his bed, inviting myself to one of his quieter games. After sitting with him for a little while a phone dinged, it didn’t sound like either of our phones. I looked up in confusion as Kenma began to sit up looking down at a newer model Blackberry flip phone,

“Where the hell did you get that ugly thing from?” I scoffed.

Kenma studied his new phone for a second before he turned back to look at me, his gaze not meeting my eyes. Seeing his face, he looked like a sad wreak, it made me notice how tiny and frail he was.

“I’m sorry, but could you leave please?”

His voice was hoarse from him not talking all day I assume. Even though I felt hurt by his words I nodded and left to go downstairs. Something must have happened last night, he’s just not ready to talk quite yet. Or maybe he just has a severe hangover. When I got downstairs I was dumbfounded by Kenma’s mother, she was happily making dinner, completely oblivious to the state of her son upstairs. She waved at me as I left.

I texted Kenma all through the following week, he answered none of my texts at all. Despite that I went to check up on him on Sunday morning. Kenma’s mother turned me away, saying that Kenma wasn’t home, and that he probably wouldn’t be for a while. She seemed upset. At first I thought that this wasn’t going to last long, and that whatever happened to Kenma he would be able to get over it. He would be back to his normal self in no time. 

Eventually, Kenma’s name became a sour one in my mouth. I stopped texting him after three weeks of no replies, and no attempt at contact with me. It never struck me that our little argument would make that big of an impact on our longtime friendship. Kenma gave people the silent treatment frequently when he was upset with them. I didn’t know that he held that much anger and I didn’t understand why he was pointing it at me, even with the dumbest argument in the world that happened between the two of us.

With graduation approaching, I didn’t have time to laminate over the details of Kenma’s feelings towards me. There was too much happening all at once for me to think about my personal life. Mostly, I labored over study guides, and volleyball, which was now reaching a climactic point as well. What with Karasuno coming at us with new vicious attacks every game. Life was going by so fast now that I can hardly keep track of everything that’s going on.

~ The day of graduation ~

I stand nervously at the side of the stage, a mass of soon to be graduates sat before me, along with the second year class sitting on the sides. I looked for Kenma, but I don’t even know if he is going to show up. Two weeks ago I had decided to put together a graduation speech to give to the class. I went through a brief interview, gave my speech to the principal and then got a notice that I would be giving the graduation speech. The principal gave his speech to the class, the usual, about this class and its hardships, and fun times together, I recall almost the exact speech from one year prior. Soon after his speech ended he called me up onto the stage, and I delivered, if I must say an awe-inspiring speech to my wonderful classmates.

Kenma did show up after the ceremony, while I was surrounded my teammates. I had just given Tora my jersey to tell him that he was going to be captain next year. I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. I turned to see Kenma, he looked down shyly when our eyes met.

“Congrats, Kuroo,” he nodded at me before taking off.

I think most of the team was just as shocked as I was that Kenma was even here. He’d been ignoring me for months now. I dismissed it soon after, when my aunts and uncles began to show up at the school. At home my grandparents had organized a small get together with my family. It was the most family that I had ever seen together, they gave me presents, and lots of food. When I heard a familiar voice,

“Congratulations!”

“Mom?” I asked, squinting.

This shape was definitely my mother’s mass of hair, she looked much older, but of course I hadn’t seen her since I was nine. She had a big grin on her face, as she embraced me.

“Wha- How?” I asked, my words jumbling together.

“I pulled some strings,” she said, “I wanted to see you graduate! I’m so proud of you!”

I felt tears well in my eyes. After years of worrying about my mom, it was nice to know that she was fine. I wish that Kenma was here to see her. My mom and I sat down and talked for hours about what she had been doing for all these years. She had gotten out rehab, and gone back to high school, taking courses online. She moved to America for awhile and was engaged to some man in Michigan right now. It was strange to hear about her, because she felt more like a distant friend than a mother. She left after everyone else did, she told me she would be here for another week, and she wanted to get together a couple times before she headed back to America.

The day ended with my grandfather handing me a bunch of boxes, and telling me a joke about his draining retirement fund. I was moving into dorms early to get a head start on college exams, maybe even to test out of a couple classes, according to my school counselor I had exemplary grades, and testing out of a few basic courses shouldn’t be a problem for me. I was packing quite a bit, merely because I would also be flying to my university, and wouldn’t always have time to come back home, except for holidays. By the time that I had packed all that I desired to take it was late in the night, and I laid down in bed, unable to sleep due to the emptiness of the room. I sent Kenma a text, thanking him for coming to my graduation. The text was left unread as all the others had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to leave any critiques you have in the comments, I would greatly appreciate the feedback. If you're a little shy and don't feel comfortable leaving them in the comments, or if you just want to talk to me (I love making friends) I do have a [Twitter](https://twitter.com/KittyKellogs) that you can contact me at.


	6. A New Direction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> !! Trigger Warning !!  
> Under age drinking  
> Statutory Rape   
> Depression  
> Starving/Eating disorder (?)  
> Isolation
> 
> Please do not sacrifice your mental health to read this story! If I missed any of the Trigger Warnings please let me know, so that I can add those, I apologize in advance if I did miss any trigger warnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is tough... Also it probably has a ton of typos, so my bad I just haven't had a whole lot of time to write these past few weeks.

When I took the drink from Teika (my manager) I didn’t think that it was anything but soda. It was when I began to feel different that I realized this wasn’t just soda. I felt warm and happy on the inside, and to my great shame it began to show on the outside, but my manager held me firmly in place. I could feel the warmth on my cheeks. Right now she was sucking up to her boss, the CEO of Crimson Idol, Akiba Norinaga. He sat in a relaxed position, his legs crossed over one another, opposite of the two of us and he kept making eye contact with me in short spurts. I guess because he was my boss he made me feel… uneasy.

“I have to go to the restroom,” I whispered to Teika.

She released my wrist, “Ok, hurry back,”

I took my drink with me to the bathroom, as strange as it looked I didn’t want anyone putting more things in it. For awhile I sat there in a stall clutching my cup in my hands, and trying to collect my nerves enough to go back. Kuro’s scent would be nice right now, lately his scent has been a source of comfort for me. Despite his unresponsiveness to my confession, but I couldn’t lie in a way it was bothering me that he never properly responded. Throughout the time after the confession he sometimes sent me signals that he liked me back, but they were off and on. I don’t think that he meant to but he was confusing me. If it’s really love would we be doubting each other in such ways?

I shook my head, I can’t stay here for the rest of the night, even if I wanted to. If this will help me brave, then just this one time I’ll drink it. I tipped the drink back and drank the rest of it in one go, half of it already gone anyway. Then I took a deep breathe and left the bathroom, initially looking for my manager, but getting distracted by Kuro, who I saw was sitting at the bar. My meeting with Kuro ended in a bleary argument, that I honestly couldn’t recall if I tried. I remember my manager coming up to me and patting my shoulder for a minute, but all I felt was sadness and embarrassment just a little.

What I do remember is the Norinaga coming over,

“Do you want to see something pretty Kenma?” he asked.

The only thing pretty that I wanted to see at that moment was my bed, so I could sleep, I also didn’t want to get fired.

“Sure,” I murmured.

Awkwardly, he grabbed my hand and began to drag into a room of the party that I hadn’t actually been in. It was just like the other room, couches in the middle arranged in a square, and a TV installed on the wall facing the couches. There was only a smaller bar in this room, left unattended. In this room however there was a sliding glass door leading out to a balcony overlooking Tokyo. The balcony had plush seating with thick, plastic coverings over the cushions, and a small rectangular fire pit, glowing blue, casting soft shadows against the walls.

Norinaga leaned up against the railing of the balcony, attempting to look cool. I’ve seen videos online of him trying to look cool, they were the most popular videos from his company up until my debut, because of how lame they were. But I guess coaches don’t play. He turned to look at me,

“I didn’t grow up in Tokyo, so things like this are really neat to me,”

I sat down in one of the stiff chairs to keep my balance a little better, “I guess the city loses its glamour the more time you spend in it.”

He looked over at me and then sat down on the couch,

“You know, I’m really glad that you presented as an Omega,”

He leaned in close to my ear, his left arm wrapped around my shoulder, and his legs crossed, relaxed as usual. In contrast I could feel my heartbeat speeding up, I don’t think I’ve ever had someone this close to me besides Kuro.

“Oh,”

His face was close to my ear now, I could feel his breath against the skin on my neck, brushing against the sensitive marking area. He then bit onto my ear, my whole body jolted up, until I felt his teeth snag onto the cartilage, not letting go.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, kissing around my jaw.

His left hand was now clasping both of my wrists together, his right hand had slipped down and under my shirt.

I shook my head no, “This isn’t appropriate,”

His response was just a grunt into my ear, as he pulled me up off of the outdoor couch. Leading me to the couch inside by both wrists.

“Let’s go inside, it’s kind of cold out here,”

As soon as we were on the couch he was on top of me, attacking my mouth, his hands all over me, under my shirt, pants even in my underwear. Eventually, his mouth leaves my face, and he begins to pull down my pants and underwear. I try to pull them back up, but he clasps my wrists with one of his hands while the other continues on my pants,

“Please stop!” I yelp.

I can feel my hands shaking as I twist and turn, unable to free myself from his grip.

“SHH- If you don’t shut up-” he growls. “Do you know what I can do to you? I can ruin much more than your career…”

Shock shoots through my body, my eyes are wide and suddenly it feels like I can’t breath, I almost feel like I’m locked up. Vaguely, I feel him slip my pants off, my shoes slipping off with my pants. My head feels like it’s spinning, I can feel his warmth on top of me, his lips connecting with mine, and my arms above my head. A sudden pain jerks me out of my daze, he’s entered me, no condoms and no lube in sight. He starts jerking his body to a rough rhythm against my genitals. His breath was shuttering against my neck,

“Please…” I whispered, “Please stop…”

“Shut up,” he growled, “You need to be quiet.”

He keeps thrusting up into me for what feels like hours, his hands had left my wrists after he found how stiff I had become, steadying himself against the couch. I couldn’t move but everyone of the muscles in my body was tensed. Soon his hands gripped my waist and his thrusting was becoming uneven and fast. His body shuddered and because of the lack of any lube I could feel the semen inside, trailing outward as he took himself out. That’s right… he’s a Beta, that’s why I didn’t smell anything. He pulled his pants up, and buckled his belt, standing and looking over to the bar.

“I’m making some drinks,” he announced.

I was still laying on the couch my legs spread wide open and my arms near my face, it took me a couple minutes before I felt like I could move again. My body and mind were overcoming a shock, I’ve never felt something more upsetting than this. After a bit I begin to sit up on the couch, and Norinaga is at my side.

“You need to clean up down there,” he said, handing me a towel, “It’s bloody and has my cum.”  
I nod and slowly take the towel out of his hands, gingerly touching it onto my genitals. The skin was sensitive, and the towel felt like needles rubbing against it.

“The first time is never easy,” he says.

He hands a little glass filled with whiskey, I’d seen him pour it into the cup earlier. He sat next to me smoking a cigarette with his drink,

“Do you smoke?” he asks.

I shake my head, “No,”

My voice comes out quietly, I feel afraid sitting next to him, he laughs.

“I can teach you later, it’s a useful social skill,”

I just want to go home. I don’t want to learn things, I just want to sleep. God please let me go to sleep. Please let there be no consequences for this. I pull my shirt down so that it covers me more.

“It’s also an easy way to lose weight, I’ve lost lots of weight just smoking, I’m mentioning this because I noticed your thighs are kind of meaty.” he said and squeezed one of my thighs. “I wouldn’t want that to interfere with your image.”

After a few minutes of silence between the two of us I take a sip of the whiskey that he handed me. Maybe I should call someone. I’m not on birth control. My mom seems like the safest option. I’m not on birth control. Kuroo might still be close by even if he’s upset with me. Norinaga interrupted my thoughts,

“I won’t tell anyone if you won’t tell anyone.” he said, “I’d hate for either of our careers to be over because of this, I have so many plans for the both of us.”

I looked up at his face, he was staring down at me. He seemed happy, and warm.

“I’m being serious you know?” he said, “The moment that I first saw you, I knew that you were the one for me. We couldn’t be together when we first met, because the company wasn’t solid enough yet. We were always only a few dollars away from failing, but you helped us. You saved us and as soon as I know that your career is solid and the company isn’t going to fail, then we can be together for real. Like an actual couple. I know this sounds kind of crazy, I know how it sounds.”

I took another sip of my drink, I could feel myself shaking and I could see the imprint of my phone on my pants. I just need to call someone to pick me up.

“I know that I can take care of you and I can take care of your family. We can be happy together.” he said. “Isn’t that what every Omega wants? Someone to help take care of them.”

He sat and kept talking for what seemed like hours, admitting to me that he loved me. Over the course of the conversation I felt continually worse and worse. He was so sad, his life was so sad. He just needed someone to love him, we did it again, this time I cried. Afterward I couldn’t stop crying, even when he left to use the restroom. My hands couldn’t stop shaking and I could barely see, I managed to send my location to Kuro, before I heard him fidgeting with the lock on the bathroom door. I drop my phone onto the floor, kicking my pants over it to keep it out of sight.

“Let’s sleep,” he said, stretching his arms up.

He gathered up the pillows and began putting them on one end of the couch.

“Can you get a blanket? They are in there.” he pointed towards a closet door.

Slowly, I stood up, my hip bones cracked and my thighs feel stiff and sore. I limped over to the little closet, pain shooting up throughout my body as I walked. The blankets were large and knitted, they didn’t look like they belong in a place like this. Pulling them out was a feat and I struggled fitting them through the door’s frame. I felt a warm hand on my shoulder,

“I can get them out,” he said, “Go lay down.”

I lay on the couch I can feel the tears ebbing near the edges of my eyes. Fuck this. This sucks, I’m drunk, I had a fight with my best friend, and my career is probably over. He laid down facing me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close, so that my face was in his chest. I gripped at his shirt, I knew he could feel me crying against him. Maybe he just didn’t know what to say.

The next morning I felt myself being shaken awake. My manager was standing over me,

“You… get…”

I could barely keep my eyes open, her words weren’t making any sense.

“Where’s Mr. Norinaga?” I asked.

She paused, but then carried on talking like I hadn’t said anything. I felt arm being yanked on as she handed me something small and round.

“I’ll text you later,” she said, continuing her pulling on my arm.

I blinked and found myself alone in the bathroom with a box of granola bars and a bottle of BlueWater Energy. My head hurts and my inner thighs, hips, and wrists had the bright pink beginnings of bruises painted angrily on them. I looked at the small object in my hand, it was a little flip phone. What happened? A heavy feeling hung over me, I felt guilty and disgusting. Why is this happening to me? For a while I just stared at the ground, I was beginning to feel more and more regret about last night. About the drinking and the fight and the thing that I did.

I curled myself up in the corner of the bathroom with the rug underneath me. Sipping on the BlueWater made my head feel better, significantly. I imagine it’s somewhat like Coke or Pepsi, so loaded with sugar that the body just loved it. The little phone vibrates in the palm of my hand, it was a text from my manager, who must have put her phone number in the phone before she gave it to me.

Teika: Thank you for last night you did well. You’ll get your other phone back soon, it broke so we’re replacing it.

I didn’t respond. It had been nearly an hour since she had left me here. I could hear cleaning people outside of the bathroom, doing their jobs. Why did they leave me here? Why not just take me with them?

I should be texting Kuro and at least apologizing to him for being mean last night. Just because I was feeling bitter about him not responding to my confession. Such a stupid fight. I don’t remember his number, I do remember when he got his first real phone and him entering his number into my phone. Eventually, after three hours of being in the bathroom, Teika texted me and told me that there was fresh clothes in the room and that there was a driver outside waiting for me.

I slowly exited the bathroom, my legs tingled as they finally moved from their sedentary position. I kept my fingers clasped around the ends of my shirt to keep from exposing myself to someone else. By now any precautions that I had taken to keep my scents at bay had warn themselves thin. The bathroom probably smelled like an invitation to an Alpha. I changed into the new clothes that they had folded onto the coffee table and left the building, keeping my head ducked down.

The sun burned my eyes, even when I was in the car. I sat in the back seat, looking down at the sidewalk speeding by. Some of the buildings reminded me of times with Kuro, I suddenly felt so much distance from him. We had talked last night and the day before that, but when the buildings zoomed by it felt like I was light years away from him. From our memories. I could feel warm tears spilling down my face, I lost so much yesterday… it feels like I did. I wonder if anyone can hear me.

At home I cry to my mom about what happened, trying to explain to her through hiccuping tears. She doesn’t understand. My manager had come over earlier that day, and told her everything that happened at the party, she even explained that we had stayed the night at a hotel last minute because I had been tired. She had the receipts from the hotel and everything. She told me I just wasn’t feeling well, maybe I should go upstairs and rest. Maybe I should.

Kuro comes over, and he brings treats and apologizes, but I don’t even know where to start when it comes to apologies. I’m sorry. My phone dings, and it’s a text from the CEO, he wants pictures of the bruises.

Can you leave please?

My mom is concerned after I sleep through most of the week, but I can’t help it. My head is pounding constantly, everything I eat mushes itself back up in my throat, and it’s always too cold or too hot. Not to mention the bruises healing on my thighs made it hard to walk or even sleep. Neither Noringa or my manager seems to think that I could possibly be pregnant. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s the last week of the month, and that means it’s school time. I finished most of my work the night before having to go back, merely because of how heavy I feel. My phone is still not back, my manager texts me every time when there are updates, I have a feeling though that I won’t get it back.

At school I heard Tora talking to some girl that he had been interested in. They were by the water fountain outside of the classroom door. She asked him if it was embarrassing to hang out with me in public,

“Well, uhh we don’t really hangout outside his mom’s house…”

Am I embarrassing?

I hardly saw Kuro, and when I did I felt nothing but guilt. He looked fine, at least he’s ok. I thought about approaching him, but then I don’t know if I would be able to control my emotions. What if I tell him everything and he doesn’t believe any of it? When I got home that night I took a bath, I felt nothing. It was like my emotions got washed away in the bath water, along with all the dirt. It sort of felt like I was in a game, that this was all a fantasy or maybe even a movie I was just watching. In the evening my manager called me,

“Hey, I’m coming over tonight, we have some important things to discuss. Can you please let your mother know? It involves her as well.”

“Of course,”

I let my mom know that Teika would be there, and then decided to sit downstairs and wait for her. My mother hadn’t cooked tonight, instead she had ordered some McDonalds on the way home. Mine had been sitting on the counter when I got home from school, so I took it upstairs to my room. I had managed to eat some of it before it was too much for me to eat, then I’d thrown it away in the trash can.

“Why don’t you eat like you used to?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked, “I’ve never eaten a whole lot.”

“Yeah, but you used to eat a meal at least, now you maybe eat half of a meal, then throw it away.” she said, “Are the meals no good?”

“No they’re good, they are- I’m just not hungry most days, because I eat at school…”

She sat down on the couch next to me.

“Your lunch balance is still full.”

I stayed silent. Over the last month Akiba, (the CEO, he told me I could call him that.) had texted me various pictures of my body that didn’t meet the criteria of a trainee in the company, let alone a debuted idol. So I was eating less to meet those standards. I shook my head,

“Can we talk about this later please?”

She nodded, and then switched on the TV, folding her legs onto the couch underneath her. I miss when we used to play games together, I miss my dad being close to me. I want to tell her the things that are happening, but I don’t know if she’ll believe it.

“Do you want to play Mario Kart after my manager leaves?” I asked.

“Sure,”

She seemed happy about that. A few minutes later Teika was here, and she bought with a new phone. It was completely new, there were no contacts, photos, or apps that weren’t base apps.

“Sorry, we tried to save all of your contacts, but nothing saved.” she said. “It’s the newest phone though, Mr. Norinaga got it for you.”

“Thank you,” I said, gripping the packaging in both hands.

It was much bigger than any other phone that I had before. She then sat on the couch where I was initially, so I sat on the chair nearby.

“We wanted to talk about Kenma’s living position, right now he’s the most successful idol that we’ve released. We as the company were thinking that it might be easier to have him closer to headquarters.”

My mom’s eyebrows scrunched together,

“I’m not going to move, this is my house, I paid for nearly 70% of it.”

“Oh! Of course! We’re not asking you to lift up your family and leave, we just want Kenma to be closer. He wants to be a part of the creative processes in his comebacks, and being 45 minutes away can cause problems for that. We want to move him to the dormitories by the headquarters, so that he’ll be closer to us. We can even help him buy an apartment when he’s 20 or with your permission, when he graduates.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand…” she said, “I told you before he even signed with the company that I don’t want him by himself. He’s with me during the important things, if you take him away then there’s no telling what decisions you could be making without me that could harm him.”

It was strange to me that she said she wanted to be there during the important things considering how little that she had actually been involved with my career as an idol. She wasn’t there when I met my trainers, she wasn’t there when they chose songs or choreography and she wasn’t there when I won my first award. I didn’t say anything as they continued on back and forth about the pros and cons of me moving out.

“What do you think Kenma?” asked Teika.

I shrugged, “I like living with my mom, but it  would be nice to not have to travel so much.”

My mom looks hurt, but really I wasn’t trying to hurt her. I was trying to be in the middle of the argument. I don’t know what I want, the past month has really taught me that.

“You want your son to succeed don’t you?” Teika asked.

“Yes, why do you think I worked so hard to get him into a company?” she said, her pitch rising with aggression, “I knew that he could be successful regardless of what shitty, programmed song that you give him!”

There was silence in the living room. I stared at the floor, thinking about ways that I could get out of this situation. Teika was shaking her head, she turned to me gently grasping my wrist,

“You can go to your room if you want,” she whispered.

I stood immediately, walking upstairs to my room. I laid down on my bed studying the wall for a bit. After about ten minutes of shifting around in bed and attempting to open up my new phone, Teika came into my room.

“Starting on Monday we are coming to collect some of your things to start moving into Crimson Idol dormitories, alright?”

“Sure,” I said.

~ Kuroo’s Graduation ~

About a month before Kuroo was supposed to graduate I got an invitation from Kuroo, mailed to me from my mom. When I moved to the dorm, she called me at least once a week and texted me everyday, but as time progressed we talked on the phone less often. That was to be expected though, because I was in the onset of a new comeback, I was too busy to be on my phone.

But when I got the invitation I talked to my manager about taking the day off to attend graduation. Not just for Kuroo, it really was common place for second years to attend graduation. She wasn’t overly enthusiastic about me attending, but she reserved the day off for me anyway. Kuroo and I had actually talked a little after the party, he was unavoidable at school. He asked me where I had been, and why I never talked to him anymore. He gave me his number again after I told him about my phone being broken. I have a feeling that he saw through a lot of the little holes in my story. I texted him later in the day, but our conversations were short, and he seemed distant.

I think that I lost Kuroo as a friend, I feel that I’ve lost most of them. The time that I spent away from everyone put a firm barrier between my friends and I. When I went to school and tried to talk to the people who I had considered my friends, the conversations were awkward and brief, the energy that I put in not being returned in the least. It all felt really sudden, but maybe I should have seen it coming sooner. Slowly, I had been putting up a wall, and then suddenly I couldn’t see them anymore.

I found out at the ceremony that Kuroo was giving a speech for the class. When the third years entered the room I scanned for him, mostly by habit, but didn’t find him. He was on stage to save time, he wouldn’t have to make his way through the seated throng of students in the gym. Kuroo’s speech was quick, but heart felt, I thought that maybe he spent all week in his room practicing it, how maybe if we communicated better that I would also have the speech memorised, because of how often he practiced it. But I didn’t even know before the ceremony.

After three grueling hours of every third year being called and receiving their diploma most of the students went out into the court yard to celebrate with their friends. I managed to follow Kuroo’s tall shadow out to the courtyard where he presented his captains jersey to Tora. I watched from a distance, until there was a good time to come up to him.

“Congrats, Kuroo.” I nodded at him.

Before I fast walked away, my little glances around the group of people told me to leave. They stared at me like I was an alien, I know that I hadn’t been here a whole lot, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t care. I cried about that for a while in my room, until my head was hurting. I guess that my emotions are tender these days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a [Twitter](https://twitter.com/KittyKellogs)


	7. Fresh Start

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was painful to write, both because it is slow and I'm bad at dialogue. And because Kuroo you're hurting my feelings :(

“Let’s get a picture of you two together!” said Bo’s mom, motioning the two of us together.

Bo and I shift closer together, posing for a photo. Over the past couple years Bo and I became good friends, bonding through volleyball and video games. That seemed to be a pattern for me when it came to making friends. My grandparents helped the best that they could, but they were struggling more often to pick things up these days. We spent most of the day unpacking all of our things and evening out the division of our room the best that we could.

“We should go take a lunch break!” Bo exclaimed.

He was really pumped up today, ready to start being an independent adult. I had mixed feelings, I think I’ll miss my grandma even though we don’t live that far away from my house. We all ended up eating at a burger place not too far from campus, chatting together. Bo’s mom got along nicely with everyone, it was easy when looking at the two of them sitting next to each other, to see where Bo got all of his energy from. His mom was a sales woman and she was extremely good at her job. That charisma from her work seemed to work its way unknowingly into Bo.

He got along with everyone around him, but there were a couple times that he didn’t. That usually left him in the corner, pouting. To be fair though, most people that didn’t enjoy his company were people who tried to make him out to be a bad person. Though there were some pouting sessions that I found unnecessary. I didn’t know how to deal with his sulking, his mom knew and she gave some pointers, but they were awkward coming out of my mouth. That’s why I stopped having a crush on him, it’s weird admitting that I had a crush on him but I definitely did when we first met. Now though, he was more like a family member than someone that I could be romantically interested in.

“Kuroo dude are you ok?”

“Mhmm, I’m just thinking about how beautiful you are bro no homo though,” I said.

“Bro no way I was thinking the same thing man, no homo.”

Bo’s mom cleared her throat, “Anyway, Kuroo what are you planning to major in?”

“Oh, I’m already majoring in neuroscience, I got all my credits for my first year taken care of.” I said.

“Oh wow!” she said, then she nudged Bo to get his attention, “Make sure you keep him on track while you’re living together Kuroo, he tends to get distracted.”

After much conversation with everyone at the table our food began to come in, it was warm and energizing to eat. The whole restaurant was overall kind of dim and warm. If there weren’t so many people I would probably be able to fall asleep in here. Soon after dinner my grandparents head out, as they tend to sleep early. After hugging them goodbye and walking the rest of the way to the dorm with Bo and his mom I realized that their sleeping schedule had worn off on me.

“Geez, dude if you keep yawning…” Bokuto said, fading off into a large yawn himself.

It was dark now, the street was lit paley by the street lamps. It’s been so long since I’ve seen the stars, I realize.

“Sorry, Bo… todays been tiring.”

It wasn’t long until we were at our dorms and Bo’s mom was gone. We had set up the beds as bunk beds for the sake of space in our tiny dorm. I wonder if Kenma would have come with me today… it’s weird that’s it’s been almost six months but I still think about him almost every night. There’s little things everyday that remind me of him, little kids with dirty shoes, the little buzz of someone’s phone while they play games. There are times when I talk to myself because I think that Kenma is there to listen. It’s been a long time since I’ve been lonely, even when there are people around.

The next day was one of the most stressful days of my life, it felt like all I was doing was running around campus, figuring out where everything was. The classes were fun though, I met people who understood my chemistry jokes and also made me laugh. The classes were quite large, but according to Bo they were not as large as the general credit classes were.

“Seriously, dude there are lots of people in them, it gets hard to focus…” said Bo.

“If you need help studying, I’d be happy to help out.” I mentioned.

“Nah, I understand, I just need to sit closer to the front to listen better.” he explained, “Anyway are your classes hard?”

I shrugged, “Right now, they just have lots of easy stuff, but I know that it’s going to get a lot harder later.”

Science and medicine is such a difficult field, sometimes I don’t know if I can do it. Bo put his hand up for a high five, it’s like he knows that I’m full of self doubt or something. I’ve never confided in someone besides Kenma, maybe that’s why I feel so alone.

“I’m excited!!” He yelled, randomly bursting with energy.

“Yeah!”

We both raced each other to the gym where our first volleyball meet would take place. Over the summer I trained a lot, but I never felt the same rush that I ran with Bo. My legs felt like they were on fire, and my mind for once started to even itself out. Everything is going to be fine. We slowed down, nearing the door, people began to dot up on the sidewalk, and I didn’t want to bump into anyone.

“I think I won!” yelled Bokuto, pumping his hands in the air.

“Sure,” I said sarcastically.

Now that we had stopped running I could smell Bo’s scent. He smelled gentle flower sweet, reminding me of Kenma, but also of hot summer afternoons. Kenma’s flowery scent reminded me of cool evenings with the windows open. Bo’s aroma was Omegaesc, though Bo himself was an Alpha.

“Dude you smell-”

“I know,” he said, “I smell like an Omega, but actually I went to Hawaii this summer and I found out that I smell like Frangipani, the flowers that they use in leis. It’s apparently a good scent to have there.”

“Bro, I wasn’t even going to say that, I was going to say that you smelled good.”

“Oh, my bad dude, thanks.”

We waited outside for the coaches and our other teammates to show up, as I wanted to get here early. Bokuto and I decided to wait for them on a bench outside, while we waited, I decided to check out Twitter. Originally, I just downloaded it so that I could follow Kenma and support him online, but recently I found myself kind of enjoying being on the app. Kenma never posted personal things online, as far as I remember his social media had always been run by his mom, or his manager. 

This is probably a weird thing, but sometimes I feel envious of Kenma. He’s a year younger than me, but he’s already a famously successful Omega idol. He’s got money, and fame, I’ve seen some of the fan videos online, during concerts he looks like he has fun. When he interacts with new people it makes me wish that I was there. Makes me wish that I was still friends with him. I guess I don’t know if I’m envious of him or his rich friends who he hangs out with. I jerked up from my phone when I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder,

“You ok?” Bokuto asked, “Your scents giving me major tense vibes.”

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine.” I said closing my phone.

Bo looked like he didn’t believe me, “Are you and Kenma ok?”

I studied the outside of my phone case, it had some dirt in the sides. Then shrugged,

“We- I don’t know I guess we aren’t connecting the same that we used to. It kind of feels like he flicked off a switch and now we don’t communicate at all. There wasn’t really a fight if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Did something happen to him?” he asked, he looked concerned.

Maybe I should have met Kenma with more concern. Bokuto seems to be sensitive to how other people feel, especially when those feelings are about him.

“I don’t know, I would think that he would tell me if something serious happened. I mean we were separated for one night what could have happened that would have been that bad?”

“My sister is an Omega and at her school Omegas have to take extra credits to graduate, so she took their educational Omega classes. A lot of gruesome things happen to Omegas, here in Tokyo Omegas are treated pretty ok in public spaces, but in other places they’re treated like animals, like they’re not even human.” he said, “You’d be surprised what someone could do to an Omega in one night.”

“Oh,” I said, “I didn’t know that.”

“I wouldn’t have known it if I hadn’t had such a close relationship with my sister.” he said.

I noticed that there were more people flocking towards the building, and congregating at the door. It looked like all three teams would be here today. The school was large enough that we would have to split into three teams, team A, B, and C. Both Bo and I made it onto team A. When we entered the gym someone caught my eye a bright girl was chatting happily with her friend. Her hair was short, it reminded me of Kenma from before they started dying his hair lots of colors. She noticed me looking and waved at me. We heard clapping and the captains of the three teams wanted us to separate into each team.

To my pleasant, though admittedly embarrassed, surprise the girl that waved to me joined us on team A. She approached me with her hand extended,

“Hi!” she said, shaking my hand, “My name is Kairi Sato!”

“Kuroo Tetsurou,” I said, “Sorry for staring earlier, you’re just very cute, mmm I hope that didn’t come off as creepy.”

She grinned, “No, not at all.”

After we introduced ourselves we continued to talk throughout the rest of the practice. The practice started with introductions and then team building exercises. I was surprised to find that I knew a few people on my team already, people that I had played in high school.

“Hey, I know this is kind of fast, but would you like to go out sometime?” I asked Kairi.

“Sure!”

“Oh! Sweet! Umm let’s meet up after practice, ok?”

She nodded, before turning around and heading to where her dorm was. It was still early in the afternoon and I had one more class to go to. Bo patted me on the back as we went on our separate ways, he was lucky enough that he didn’t have to go to another class today. As I walked around campus I noticed various restaurants set up, most of them being fast food, but there was one little place snuggled in between two large buildings. It was a small bakery, with a display window showing their multi colored macaron treats and a large pie. I think Kenma would have liked to eat there.

Maybe I should bake macarons, maybe we could make macarons together. Hurriedly, I looked up a cooking class that I could take her to on my phone, scoring the last few available places for the class. It was about an hour or so after practice, but I think that would just give us enough time to maybe talk or get some food.

The next day couldn’t go by fast enough, it made me wish really hard that I had asked for her number the day before. Bo could tell from the minimal time that we spent with each other throughout the day that I was anxious about everything.

“What if she thinks the date is a stupid idea?” I asked.

“She won’t,” he said, “You’ll have a good time.”

Bo was surprisingly contained today, he was settling down and taking his studies seriously. He wanted to make his mom proud of him, so he wasn’t paying attention to me babbling on about my love life problems. Myself, I couldn’t focus on my work, everytime I started reading, there would be something that stirred up the pit in my stomach, and reminded me of the date that I was going on.

After practice Kairi and I meet up in the gym to talk about our date. She looked happy,

“Hey,” I said.

“Hi,”

A moment of silence passed between the two of us.

“Uhh, there’s this baking class going on at this off campus culinary place, I was thinking that we could go there.”

“Sure,”

“It’s in about an hour, are you hungry? We can get food before we go.” I suggested.

“Yeah! I want to take you to my favorite restaurant,” she said, “I’m glad you left a window open for me to show you!”

She took my hand and pulled me towards the door of the gym, instantaneously I was overwhelmed with the strong scent of lavender.

“They make food so nicely!” she said, “It’s nice to take pictures of it…”

Most of the hour was spent waiting for our food to arrive and when it did I have to say that the taste of the food was underwhelming compared to the aesthetic, but I didn’t tell her that. The restaurant was modern and had good lighting for photos of which she took many when our food arrived.

“I like to take photos of everything, because I like to look back at my memories of the year, it’s fun.” she explained.

We barely made it in time for the baking class, stepping a few minutes after the class was said to begin. But it seemed to be ok because everyone was still settling into their seats. It was set up almost like a science classroom, a classroom I was very familiar with. Because of how late we were, we sat in the back of the classroom, which was fine for the both of us. Kiari was really tall, I hadn’t noticed around all the other volleyball players, but she stood starkly out from the crowd with her height in other areas.

We also discovered that making macarons was difficult. Very difficult. But our teacher was a gentle older lady gave extra help to those with baking experience that was few and far between.

At the end of the night, while we were sitting outside eating our mediocre macarons, she told me about her instagram account and that she had something like 700,000 followers.

“I was just wondering if you would be ok with me posting pictures from our date, since I have so many people following my account.”

“Yeah, it’s fine, I don’t really care about followings and stuff,” I said, “I honestly don’t get why it’s that big of a deal.”

She shrugged,

“For some people it’s necessary.” she said. “I’m going into journalism so it’s nice to already have an established group of people to read my stuff.”

“Yeah, I had a friend that blew up online and now he’s like super rich and stuff.”

“Oh, really? Who is he?” She asked, “Maybe I follow him.”

“I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but it’s Kozume Kenma, he was my childhood friend.” I said, “We don’t really talk anymore.”

“Oh shit, no way!” she clapped her hands together. “What made you guys not talk anymore?”

“I don’t really know we just kind of stopped talking.”

She persistently wanted me to talk about Kenma after I mentioned him until I told her that I didn’t want to talk about him. I don’t think I’ll tell anyone that I knew him anymore if they were going to respond like this. We arrived back at our dorms and I made sure that she made it safely into her room. She turned around to tell me goodbye, and she wrapped her arms around my neck, placing a kiss on the side of my lip. My heart stopped for a solid five seconds. I smirked,

“You missed,”

She laughed, and then gently shoved me away.

“Go away Kuro!”

“Wait is it ok if I call you Kuro?”

“Yeah,”


	8. Time Loop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is so long overdue... I'm sorry... I have university now, so that has become my main priority. I wish that I could write more often, but it's just not possible. I do write at night before I go to bed, but it's usually not much. I'm trying my best, I promise that I will not disappear without explanation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING  
> Drugs  
> Sex  
> Cursing  
> Depression  
> Abuse - Physical and verbal

Every time an award show offered us an invitation Crimson Idol accepted. Because it had started off as such a small company any sort of press was better than none. Although now that it’s been almost a year since my debut there are people practically knocking down the door to get in for an audition. That sounds big headed.

“Kenma can you come this way?”

I nodded and strolled to the side of the stage again. We were doing pre-filming for some award show, it was that season again. I could feel a set of hands at my waist adjusting the top that I was wearing, while another person had their hands tangled in my hair, attempting to make the long mass of damaged hair look good. At this point it’s been repeatedly bleached for about a year now and the bleach has taken its toll on my hair.

“Was that good?” I asked Teika.

“Yeah, it was fine,” she said, focusing on her phone.

I picked up my bottle of BlueWater Energy off the floor before we left.

"Akiba is stopping by this evening to check in on you ," she mentioned.

I twisted the cap on the bottle backwards and forwards, "Ok,"

When I made it to the cafeteria I sat by myself on my phone. Even now I have a difficult time making friends, my training may have taught me how to wow a crowd, but it was something that could be felt through upon individual conversation. A curtain of mist that I put around myself to keep others at bay, usually unintentionally. The award shows are a lot of waiting and listening, painfully boring to sit through when you feel stranded in crowds of people. If any of my friends were here it would be more fun, if Kuroo were here it would be an event.

In total I won one award for the night, that award pertaining to popularity. I could feel hot blush on my face standing with my award on the stage. Despite myself happiness was gushing out through every pore in my body, I was shaking, but I could hardly feel it. Even on stage with all these people who were similar to me it felt like we were all different. I think in the idol world, a world unbeknownst to those who are not idols, it was pretty well spread that Crimson Idol was a company that was here to make lots of money and then leave, if the idol world popularity were ever to go down. Often times when I’m with the CEO, I hear things that I’m not supposed to. See people who aren’t meant to be seen, lots of people who are not permitted to be running a company help this place run like a well oiled machine. I guess that makes me one of the gears.

I felt a warm hand on my shoulder, making me jerk my head up from my award. It was one of the people that I had been competing against for the award, they smiled at me,

“Congrats!”

They yelled over the speaker and the over-bearing chatter of people around us. I nodded,

“Thank you!”

Their face lit the room like a lamp, with their bright beautiful smile and dimples. It’s easy to see why they would be nominated for an award like this. They looked excitedly at me,

“Do you want to take a selfie together?” they asked.

I nodded, “Sure!”

They leaned down and held up their phone with their camera app open, we took selfies. And they immediately posted them online,

“Thank you,” they said then proceeded to cheerfully bounce away.

I felt awkward, there was definitely something awkward about that interaction, besides me. Slowly, I made my way back stage, excited energy creeping up in my stomach, and chest at the thought of having to be around Akiba again this evening. At this point I was used to the texts and calls in the middle of the night, but I hadn’t spent much time with him in real life since the first night that we met.

Soon after my manager and I left the building I realize why that situation had felt terribly awkward. He had posted the pictures right after we took them without even thinking about it. I can’t remember the last time that I posted something on social media, any form of it. The passwords that I had set for all of them long departed from my memory, even some of the apps gone from my phone. For some reason that made me anxious,

“Hey, Teika,” I said.

“Hmm?” She asked.

“How long has it been since I’ve posted on social media?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, I’ve been making sure that I post some photos of you, that’s why I always ask you to pose or take pictures and send them to me. Did you think that I liked looking at your face that much? I’m not Norinaga.”

“Akiba doesn’t want pictures of my face,” I said.

“I don’t want to know the details,” she said, “I’ve just been posting for you on all of your social media, but you can have the passwords if you wanted to take a look.”

She sent me the login information and I reposted the photos that the person took with me and followed them. Afterward, I scrolled through my timeline, looking at pictures of old friends. There were not very many people that I followed. The graduated third years talked a lot about their new college, and the fun they were having there. Tora still only posted about volleyball, there were videos of his “epic spiking,” and fail videos of a player named Lev getting hit in the face. I looked up Kuroo’s user, but he hadn’t updated since he graduated high school. I wonder if he is angry with me. When was the last time I even talked to anyone from school?

I should text Tora or Fukunaga or something… What would I even say? Sorry for disappearing for a year, how have you been? Would they want to talk to me after I ghosted them for that long… do they think that I got caught up and big headed as a celebrity.

“Do you have-” I began to say.

“Yes, I have some cigarettes in my purse, and no you cannot smoke in the car, you can wait until we get to the hotel and smoke on the balcony.” she said, “It’s not good for you to be smoking, you’re a singer.”

Once I was back up in my room, I took the box of cigarettes from Teika, and sat myself down on one of the chairs on the balcony. I took out a cigarette sitting it comfortably between my lips before fumbling with my lighter, I don’t think I’m that good at smoking still. I flicked the lighter twice before getting a feeble flame out of the tip. The act of smoking still feels weird, I breathed in, and let the smoke out. The tight feelings in my chest and stomach dissipating, what a surreal feeling. I faced the glass door leading into the hotel room, vaguely watching the TV screen flicker in the room, the shadows it cast on the wall. Different shades of pink, white and black. I felt my phone buzz on my lap,

“I’m outside the hotel,” read a text from Akiba.

I took another couple puffs of my cigarette before putting it out on the concrete wall and throwing it in the trash.

“Fuck me,” I whispered.

I closed the balcony door gently behind me and turned on the lights in the room, then began to adjust myself in the bathroom mirror, so that I didn’t look so fifteen hours of makeup and changed into PJ’s. Midway through wiping away the dropped mascara under my eyes I heard a knock on the door, making me jump. I took a deep breath, first time really hanging out in almost a year.

“Hey,” he smiled when I opened the door, and pushed his way in. “I’ve got some presents for you.”

I slipped the do not disturb sign onto the door and closed it gently behind me. He held up a grocery bag,

“I got weed and snacks,” he said.

I hesitated for a moment, “We’re just hanging out here?”

“Yeah? Is that a problem?” He asked, “You know I’m not made of money Kenma.”

“Sorry,” I said and sat down on the bed next to the grocery bag, “I like to stay in.”

I fidgeted with the bag on the bed, as he sighed and sat down next to me. He took the ends of the bag from my hands and began unloading the contents of the grocery bag, a small baggie filled with weed, candy and mini individually wrapped apple pies. I watched his fingers as he grinded up the weed, and placed it carefully on the paper. It smells bad even from here. After rolling for a bit he put it up in my face, I recoiled, it really stinks,

“Lick it,” he said, putting it back in my face.

I stuck my tongue out and licked it, feeling my throat clench up.

“Have you smoked weed before?” he asked.

I shook my head no,

“I sent you those edibles, did you eat them?”

I nodded, “Yeah, they were good, it was nice… I felt foggy in the morning.”

He laughed and then stood to open the balcony doors, I sat on the bed pushing my feet underneath the rough hotel covers.

“I think this will help keep people from smelling it through the vents.” he said.

I took the package of apple pies from the end of the bed and began to open them up.

“Save those for later,” he said and handed me the joint before sitting down next to me.

“Like cigarettes?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, distractedly flipping through the channels on the muted TV.

I pressed the joint between my lips, it was similar… kind of. Unlike the edibles it took only a few minutes before I could feel it’s effect on me. It worked away my anxious feelings into nothingness, completely. We passed the joint back and forth to each other for awhile,

“You can keep it,” I said, I could feel the tiredness creeping up on me gradually.

I leaned against Akiba’s shoulder rubbing my face into it. He moved up and wrapped an arm around my waist. The blankets were too cold and they felt moist on my legs,

“Hotels are so gross,” I said.

“Mmm,” was his response.

He had settled on a channel that he liked and had turned the TV off mute. My eyes couldn’t keep up with the lights, so it looked like a colorful blur across my vision. And for awhile I felt peaceful, laying, listening to his heartbeat in his chest and smelling the weak cologne on his shirt. It was strange smelling it, it was meant to mimic Alpha pheromones, but it was a weaker scent, almost diluted smelling. Usually, Betas wear cologne to attract Omegas easier, however Omegas tend to lose interest when they find out that the person they thought was an Alpha was a Beta. I don’t know why he thought that he needed to have that on for me.

“Do you want to see my song journal?” I asked, without thinking.

“Sure,” he said.

I pushed myself up away from the warmth that we had been sharing, across the plush carpet to find my song book. It was hidden away in my clothes. The book was practically full completely of songs, and little doodles. But I stiffened when I realized that the songs that I wrote about him last year were, not reflecting my feelings now. Oddly, the songs from last year still resonated with me, but they wouldn’t resonate with him as much. I was sad and angry, and for weeks on end, what felt like years actually, I didn’t feel anything at all. I worked and then I went home and laid down, either sleeping for twelve hours, or not sleeping at all for days. 

Most recently were the songs about how lonely I felt. It’s depressing to think about, hearing people just outside my room, but not having the courage to go outside and say hello. I walked back to the bed, all too aware of the shit storm about to happen, and I hesitantly handed him the book. He inspected the book, opening it up to the inside cover and reading the inscription from my dad. I felt a twinge of sadness thinking about how my dad used to talk to me. He smiled a bit as he flipped through the first couple of songs,

“They have potential…”

My heartbeat pounded in my head belligerently, as I watched his fingers fidget with the pages, getting closer each time to the songs that I wrote so long ago. I walked myself into this, I deserve whatever comes next… the words on the pages blurred together as I watched his fingers move along the edges of the paper, until I felt a sharp, hard sting on my temple. My hands were up against my head, as I heard him began to grab his things.

“Can’t believe this…”

I could hear short spurts of his words, but nothing more.

“Please don’t leave…” I said, quietly, grasping onto his arm as he walked by.

He stopped, grabbing my chin and forcing me to look into his eyes. I’d never had someone be so angry at me before.

“You’re not even worth my time.” he said, coldly, letting go of my chin.

I felt tears well up in my eyes, it was hard to breathe. He threw the book across the room, where is bounced off the glass balcony door and onto the ground with a subdued thud.

“Please, you’re one of the only ones left, please don’t leave,” I begged, getting up to stop him.

He was tying his shoes on the ground, making angry jerking motions as he tied his shoes.

“You wrote that like I’M some kind of monster,” he ranted, “I’m the one who made you into who you are, you would be nothing if it weren’t for me!”

He stood up and began to pick up his grocery bags, I wrapped my arms around his waist, I could feel my body trembling against his.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” he yelled prying my hands off of his waist.

“I’m sorry…” I cried.

He turned around and looked at me, studying me carefully.

“My god, you are pathetic,” he said, “If you didn’t have me here you would be out there being used by some disgusting Alpha, you know that right?”

I nodded my head slowly, my eyes focusing in on my feet, my fingers clasped together at my stomach. Until I heard a sigh and felt his arms wrap around me, tenderly, rocking us back and forth. He took a couple deep breaths, cooling his temper. 

“I’m burning that book,” he whispered, kissing the top of my head.

He let my go after what felt like forever of standing there, and picked up the book and put it on the nightstand next to the bed.

“Tomorrow at home.” he said.

I didn’t object as he lay back down in the bed, he motioned me over to him.

“I can’t believe you would write things about me like that…” he said, “You wouldn’t now would you?”

“No,” I said, as I sat in the bed, hesitating to get close to him again.

“You know how you could make it up to me?” he asked.

I shook my head no,

“Write love songs,” he smiled, “Everyone will wonder who your mystery lover is. I’ll even let you put some of them in your albums.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

He nodded, “for now let’s get comfy.”

I shifted my weight further onto the bed and he pulled me onto his lap immediately. His hands at my hips he began to grind on me. The fast shifting made me lose my balance falling forward, towards his face. His breath smelled bad, like blueberry flavored candy and weed, I’m sure my breath smelled the same. I connected our lips together, trying to move my hips into a steadier, slower rhythm. He was never good at being gentle, it was hard to breathe, all this sudden movement. His hands were up my shirt and down my pants, my loose clothing making my body easier to access.

“You lost your baby fat,” he said, “Do you know how much you weigh now?”

I shook my head, “No, I’ve just been… dieting I guess.”

He squished my cheeks in his hands and kissed me on the lips. I kissed down his neck, taking another strong whiff of cologne again. We had settled together, hips rocking methodically,

“God…” he murmured.

I began to suck on his neck, nipping at it, before I felt him yank me up by my hair.

“ _Don’t_ mark me,” he said, between gritted teeth. “What is it with Alphas and Omegas and marking all the time.”

“Sorry…” I apologized. “What do you want me to do?”

“Suck on my dick, not my neck.”

I felt myself heat up, from my cheeks all the way to my neck.

“I’ve never done that before,” I said, quietly.

“You’ll learn quickly.” he said.

I shuffled myself down so that I was perched gently on his legs. Slowly, I undid the button of his pants and unzipped them, pulling them downward along with his underwear. His dick bounced right up, it was much bigger than what I had. Omega’s were never really that big. I adjusted myself one last time before leaning down, I’ve seen videos of this before, that’s kind of like experience.

Slowly, from the bottom of the shaft I licked upward towards the tip. Then licked around the tip before taking it into my mouth, making sure that my teeth weren’t scraping down his dick. Once again I felt unwelcome fingers in my hair this time pressing me further down the shaft. My novice throat, unable to handle his length gagged and contracted around him. My mouth had spittle coming out of it, my nose was dripping, and I could hear myself making the most unattractive noises as I tried to breathe, but I couldn’t.

He let me up after a couple seconds, and let me catch my breath, gasping and sputtering. I lifted my hand to wipe my face off, but he already was tugging me back down. It only took him one more time before I felt a pulse in the back of my throat. He released my hair I came up coughing, and trying to get air in. I never want to do that again…

“Just how an Omega idol should look…”

My ears popped during that, because I could hardly hear what he was saying,

“What?” I asked, aloud before I could think.

“Nothing,” he said.

It felt like I was underwater, the fact that I was still high probably did not help this situation. I wiped my mouth and under my nose with the sleeves of my PJs, before getting off of him and pulling his pants the rest of the way off. Suddenly, he pulled me onto him again, so that I was laying down between his legs. 

“Let’s do this all night,” he said, “I want to see you.”

Is this all it takes for me to drop my pants? I could feel the blood coursing, and the smell of roses filling the air already. It still felt sore when he put his dick in me, but I had my first orgasm with a partner that night. We breathed in sync with each other, and came at the same time, it was all night.

We ended up passing out around 3:30 the glowing red numbers in the dark told me. We didn’t touch much of the food, but both of us drank a can of cold green tea. This time I felt Akiba leave, but I could barely open my eyes. It felt like a dream, his hands resting gently on my head, where he left a little peck and an I love you.

A couple hours later my manager was shaking me awake, for real this time. She perched herself on the bed not to far away and began texting on her phone. There was one of the small, wrapped apple pies left on the table where my song book had been the night before.

“We have to get you out before 11.” she told me.

I nodded my head, rubbing my eyes, and then stretching. My legs are sore. Then I wrapped my arms around her,

“Do I smell?” I asked.

“You smell like weed,” She said, “take a shower, then the team can make you all pretty again.”

“Where does he go when he leaves?” I asked.

“I don’t know Kenma… meetings, flights, important things, he’s an up and coming person in the industry.” she explained.

“Am I an up and coming person in the industry?” I asked.

“Mmm,” she said, making herself busy cleaning up the hotel room a little.

I got up and slipped out of my clothes, leaving them folded on the bed, before going into the shower to rinse myself off. The stylists didn’t like my hair too clean, it made it harder to style. I felt myself relax against the warm, pelting shower, then assessed my body for any obvious bruising. After about ten minutes standing in the shower, too lazy to grab the soap and actually wash myself I got out and dried off. Soon the stylists began to come in, fixing my face and hair. It didn’t take long for them to finish and I was out of the hotel by 7:00.

My brain feels fuzzy, but I like it.

Of course when we were outside there weren’t many people there, making me further question the necessity of going through all this effort. The ride home was miserable and long, but the radio turned down and the windows cracked open made the journey much easier.

When I got to my dorm room, I found a small bag of gummy bear edibles to my bed.

“I want you to lose weight, Kenma.” I said in a mocking tone, “You weigh more than our trainees do, Kenma.”

I flopped down on the bed, my face burrowing into a warm pillow. How much did I eat last night? I pulled the package of gummy bears against my face, feeling the cool plastic on my cheek.

“Homework… I have homework, I can’t be high for.” I said to myself.

I got up and sat down at my desk, most of the homework that I have now is online and I only had to attend school two days out of the month. The homework was easy, basic things, because they never got the chance to teach me anything different, or new. I’ve become a shitty student, not particularly motivated to finish school… this is arrogant of me to think, but I’ve already succeeded, so what’s the importance of continuing?

My mother wanted me to finish high school, but she wasn’t happy with me right now. A couple weeks after I moved out she called me angrily, yelling at me about the smoking and the drinking. I drank a lot after I moved out, because I missed my mom and my bed at home… My dad did the same thing shortly after. They’ve had a couple curt conversations with me, but it was clear they were not happy with my decisions. How long has it been since I’ve spoken to either of them? Days? Weeks? I don’t remember anymore, I do remember crying for three days afterward.

After my parents freaked out I changed my emergency contacts because I was angry with them. I told Fukunaga that he was my emergency contact and he accepted that. A lot easier than I expected. Though Tora didn’t see, to share that enthusiasm.

Which reminded me, I pulled out my phone, checking for messages from anyone. Of course there were none. So I put my phone away and suffered through two grueling hours of homework. I can’t imagine being a full time student, going to school everyday… Even now with the tasks I’ve been given it can become overwhelming.

However, the reward afterward was nice, munching on gummies and logging into some multiplayer games to mess around. After a week it’s great to reunite with my systems. And my online friends… they were the only people who kept me alive sometimes. I’ve made friends online before, with how often and how many games I play it was unavoidable. Those people were fleeting, we talked on and off, they seemed more interested in playing then making friends. Which was ok with me, because I was the same way. Once I began desiring friends, and online was the only way I could obtain them, I formed friendships with people. It was difficult, but I weeded my way into a group of online friends.

There were about six or seven people on consistently, everyone was from a different country, but we all spoke enough English to understand each other at the end of the day. No one knew who the other was, so it was easy to make friends without other physical factors getting in the way. I looked at the group chat before deciding what to play, but only a couple minutes into playing I felt the edibles kick in.

“Why do you suck right now?”

“Sorry… I’m not feeling the games today I guess.” I said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just my life,” I said.

“Mood.”

We played more games, joking around and pissing on each other. Spending time online with people made me feel more human.

“I’d like to meet you, to hug you one day.”

“Me too.” I said.

Sometimes, I was lucky enough to meet fans of mine, they also made me feel better. Usually, encouraging me to be healthy, and rest more. I kept a small stash of fan things under my bed in a tub. Just small things, like candy wrappers, art cards, and a hat with rabbit ears. It was great to know in a big void of people that there were a few who liked me.

I heard my phone vibrate against the desk.

“Pictures?” A text from Akiba read.

“I have to go.” I said to the chat and logged off.

I shed my pants and underwear before climbing onto the bed, getting distracted by my Instagram before I recalled why I laid down in the first place. It’s too cold in here for this… but I propped the phone up on my desk and turned it onto video. My thighs were a little bruised but he wasn’t as aggressive this time as he was the first.

I posed in these stupid, vulnerable poses for around two minutes before turning off my phone and screenshotting the poses that looked ok. My body… has never been my favorite thing about me, but it had been slowly dropping on my list of things that I like about myself. When I took photos like this it never turned me on, but it did remind me that I hadn’t had a heat in a long time. It feels like I haven’t… maybe I did? Maybe last week… maybe two weeks ago… I don’t remember.

My feet played with the blankets as I flipped through the photos to send Akiba. Being high always made me feel like a blank canvas. I want to paint myself with music. There wasn’t a whole lot of dancing or singing I could do in my dorm, because we weren’t supposed to be loud.

Time Skip to School Days

On my way to school my manager slipped something small into my pocket,

“Akiba wanted you to have these.” she said.

“Mmm k,” I said.

When I got to my classroom I rolled out the little baggy inside were three small pills. I pressed the pills between my fingers and played with them for a while before popping all three in my mouth. It took longer than thirty minutes for me to start feeling the effects of the pills. It felt like little bugs were crawling around my body, and there were people whispering, but it was so loud. Even though the teacher was clearly talking. My breathing was loud too, I put my head down and started to sleep. I had some weird dreams, so the teacher sent me home for the day.

“Kenma are you ok?” He asked.

I opened my mouth, but couldn’t let my voice out. It felt trapped, so he sent me home.

I want to graduate, was all I could think as I walked myself out of the school to the dorms again.

When I got to my dorm, my manager came into my room and told me the school had been calling.

“Teacher sent me home…” I said, my voice finally working.

There was a man in the closet, waiting to scare me, so I was still in my school uniform.

“He said I looked ill.”

“Kenma your teacher is a female.” she said, “Who were you talking to?”

I shrugged, “Tired.”

She pinched her nose, “Ok, but you’re going for the rest of the week, and no more of those pills.”

I nodded, “Can I have more this weekend?”

“If he gives me more,” she said, sitting down on my and stroking her fingers through my hair, “I have some bad news. We’ve kept your graduation day clear for awhile now, but an important event came up, so you’re going to have to… not attend graduation…”

“Ok…” I whispered.

That’s a little sad.

“Sorry,” she apologized.

“It’s fine,”


	9. Sickness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter chapter, but it came out pretty damn fast so that's ok. My next one is going to be much longer than this, so that's a good time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING  
> Puking  
> Cursing  
> Drugs, and withdrawal symptoms (I don't know if that's a trigger but better safe than sorry.)

His hair was sticking to the back of his head as he tossed and turned over the sheets on his bed. Kenma’s head felt like it was going to explode.

“I want my mom,” his hoarse voice whimpered out.

A crack of thunder overhead made him spasm upward, his vision going white as he sat up. He laid back down, moaning and clutching his head,

“Mommy…” was all he could get out.

Slowly, he began to get out of bed starting with his hand, which traced the ground, running over the bumpy, stained rug near his bed. He placed his foot on the ground, his sock half taken off of his foot because of his squirming. Then the next foot, and he pushed himself off the bed, but his knees were too weak to support him, he crashed down onto the floor. When he hit the ground he felt his stomach jerk, his whole body shivered. He covered his mouth as he began to feel vomit coming up his throat,

“Oh!” he said, and yanked his trash can towards him.

The puke gushed up rapidly, coating the inside of his throat with rancid, sour mucus. His puke was all liquid at this point, as there wasn’t anything solid that he could upchuck in his stomach. He sat up his eyes watery, and stared at the liquid at the bottom of his trash can. 

“I hate myself…” was all he could think.

He stood up, his stomach felt a little less pressure, so it was easier this time to stumble towards the door, despite the pounding heachache raging in his head. 

Once he got started, he went swiftly through the empty halls as the lightning flashed in the windows, it seems so endless, this suffering he thought. Two days he’s been sick like this, his manager occasionally checking in on him, a warm cloth in hand. 

“He can’t do anything when he’s like this.” she would say.

Kenma rubbed his hand up and down his face. He saw the windowed entrance to the dorm, lit up by the streetlights, the rain made a gentle halo around the lights. As he approached the door he could hear pattering on the entrance. He burst out into the downpour, feeling it's cool, freshness on his face. He left with no money, keys or phone, but he could walk home, even if it took him awhile.

But as he walked down the street the freshness of the rain faded into an itchy, cold making him shiver uncontrollably. He made two stops to dry-heave over some trash cans before he found himself standing outside of his mom’s house. He stepped onto the deck, finally shielded from the rain, his hand shook as he ran the doorbell. His lips were purple, his skin had gotten blotchy and gray on the way over. The house lit up and he could hear a dog. A dog, when did she get a dog?

He could see the shadow of her feet under the door, but it remained closed. The dog was quiet now.

“Mom?” he asked, every-time he spoke his head and lips felt tingly. “Please let me in… I’m sick…”

There was no answer. Kenma’s legs suddenly felt weak again, he leaned against the door, slowly sinking down onto the ground.

“Mom, are you listening?” he tapped against the door.

Eventually, the lights in the house flicked off, answering his questions. He leaned his forehead against the door, he felt once again numb on the inside. 

“I can’t even be sad.”

“Kenma!” he heard someone shout.

He turned to see his manager, dressed casually, he saw her car behind her as she stomped up the stairs. She grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him off the ground. She turned him around and shook him, making him dizzy and nauseous.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” she shouted over the rain.

She glanced around suspiciously before dragging Kenma back to her car. He sat down in the passenger seat, where there was a towel to help catch how wet she knew Kenma would be. She then went around to the drivers side, sitting down and reaching to the back for another towel to put over him, before buckling him into the car. Kenma looked at her face for the first time, and noticed that her hair was fraying out from her bun, so he reached up and tucked it behind her ear. She huffed and flopped down onto the back of the seat,

“Sorry for yanking you around like that,” she said, “you just- you can’t go making scenes like that in public.”

“I’m sorry.” Kenma said, he meant it.

“It’s ok, but we’re going back to my house, I’m making sure you don’t tonight.” she said sternly, “You’re lucky one of the other Omegas in your dorm noticed the door was open. You could have been- I don’t know- something bad could have happened to you.”

“Ok.”

She turned the dial on the heat up and Kenma placed his hands near the vent, enjoying the feeling of his hands thawing out slowly. The blood flowing within them.

“I wonder if Kuroo saw me… how embarrassing…” Kenma thought out loud.

Teika didn’t say anything, so Kenma watched the streetlights blink past as she drove down the normally bustling city streets. It’s so quiet, and late she only had to stop at the red lights. The blurry neon shop signs flew past them merging into each other. Teika drove for half an hour before the city turned into an upper class suburban area. Neat lawns organized, the porch lights dark.

Teika had a big house with a two car garage and many, many windows. She slowly pulled into the driveway, and when the door to the garage opened he could tell that she had no kids, as there was a beautiful sports car and only two boxes of things on a little shelf. 

“Let’s get you warmed up inside,” she said.

She took Kenma inside and to the large master bathroom, and showed Kenma how the bath worked.

“I have some warm clothes for you when you’re done.” she said, leaving Kenma in the bathroom alone.

Once alone Kenma allowed himself to relax, show some of the pain that he was in. He massaged his head between his fingers…

“I just need something, anything…” was all that he could think.

He couldn’t think about baths or rain or his manager, but he had to force himself one step at a time out of his head. He made the bath as hot as he could make it, when he finally worked up the willpower to start the water.

“I want to feel like a piece of cooked meat.” he muttered under his breath.

The sting of the hot water on his skin was surreal, almost detracting from the pain and stiffness he felt all over his body. For the first time in awhile Kenma took the time to wash himself thoroughly, scrubbing his scalp and his body, normally he got in the shower and rinsed himself before getting out. On a good day that was a big accomplishment, I suppose all it takes is withdrawal symptoms to make someone care about themselves. There was a knock on the door and then his manager came in unprompted, with another set of clean towels and some pjs for Kenma.

“Here are some clothes for you.” she said, “They might be a little big, but you’re only staying here for one night.”

She hesitated by the door, “Did you need any help?”

“No,” Kenma said, standing up.

Shaky legged, he resembled a baby deer walking for the first time. Teika left for the kitchen to concoct a drink that would help ease Kenma’s “sickness.” Meanwhile, Kenma took great pleasure in drying himself off with the clean, fluffy towels. The lotion that was in Teika’s bathroom was scented and would probably hurt Kenma’s skin but he didn’t say anything, he just lathered it on generously on himself.

When Teika came back, she had a tea mixed with all sorts of nasty things. Even when she didn’t want them, Akiba kept giving Kenma a steady stream of drugs, and Kenma basically ate them out of the palm of her hand at this point. If she didn’t restrict him so much she wasn’t sure where Kenma would be at this point. And he was so trusting of her. She watched as Kenma struggled with the hairdryer and another surge of guilt overcame her.

“I helped this…” she thought. “Helped with the regression and ruining of kids life. Now he’s twenty and completely helpless. I don’t know how much longer I can take this.”

She handed him the drink and took the blow dryer out of his hands. He sipped at is first, but drank the rest of it down desperately when he felt the sensations hitting him.

“Can I have more please?” he asked.

“Yeah, but not until I get your hair dry.” she said.

He’ll get through it, and get strong again. That’s the cycle of a rose.


	10. Breathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING  
> Cursing/foul language  
> Abuse:  
> Substance abuse (alcohol/drugs)  
> Emotional  
> Physical  
> Verbal  
> Financial  
> Depression  
> Overdose  
> Nudity (kind of?)  
> If there are any trigger I missed I'm sorry, if you feel up to it message me what I missed!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I pulled a Haikyuu!! manga power move and did a major time skip forward into the future. I planned this chapter way back during the summer time, it's like Furudate and I are telepathically connected or something. Anyway, I'm sorry that this took so long to get out, mostly it was procrastination and school after awhile the time between this update and my last update for some reason became a source of anxiety for me. I'm anxious updating this chapter right now, but that's ok we are dealing.

Mesmerizing colors flowed in and out of the screen, a thought occurred to Kenma,

“How long have I been watching this?” 

It didn’t shake him out of his trance for long, he wants to watch the video. Just watch the video.

“Kenma!” Akiba shouted.

Kenma jumped up from his place laying out on the bed, mostly naked, with a small laptop screen in front of his face.

“Kenma you’re drooling,” Akiba said, pointing to Kenma's mouth.

“Oh,” he wiped away the drool.

Akiba smiled at Kenma, walking over to the bed and wrapping his arms around his head, holding him close. Akiba smelled like cologne, he was trying to mask the smell of cigarette smoke on his body. Kenma looked up at his face, Akiba’s lips were starting to turn purple from the amount that he was smoking. He must feel a lot of stress right now Kenma thought. Kenma buried his face in Akiba’s chest, the feeling of guilt took over his heart. It was probably something to do with promotions, but Kenma was too afraid to ask. Akiba stepped away and began taking off his suit, he was slow and lethargic anymore these days.

‘Why am I here? How long have I been here?’

It occurred to Kenma that maybe he’d been here for a couple of days. 

“Did you want to bathe?” Asked Akiba, he was surprisingly calm.

“Ok,” Kenma said.

He stood up and went to the bathroom to get the bath water running, Akiba liked his baths warm and bubbly. Kenma gathered the shampoo and conditioner, and the soap from the shower floor.

“Kenma this is too hot…” Said Akiba, feeling the running water under his hand.

“Sorry,” Kenma apologized.

He adjusted the cold knob and sent the hot water back.

“I just want to have a relaxing night,” He complained to Kenma. “Everyone at work has been crazy.”

“What happened?” Kenma asked.

Akiba paused slipping his tie the rest of the way off, before shrugging his shoulders. 

“It’s ok you don’t need to hear about it, I’ll talk to my friends about it later.” he said, “Oh, I’m having people over so you have to get dressed, they are friends, but they don’t care that we’re together.”

Kenma nodded, “ok”

Akiba slowly climbed into the tub, sighing as the warm water enveloped him. He laid down near the faucet so that Kenma could have access to water to wash his hair with. Wordlessly, Kenma sat down behind him on the ledge of the bath resting on the cool marble tile curling around the tub, Akiba rested between Kenma’s legs. Akiba didn't say it often but he liked Kenma’s fingers working through his hair. He likes hair, Kenma rarely cut his hair short, because Akiba likes long hair, to pull, to brush, and play with. Akiba didn’t realize but he was starting to bald on the back of his head. Kenma poured shampoo onto his hands, rubbing the shampoo to warm it before lathering it onto Akiba’s scalp.

“Kenma, after you’re done get me a cigar.” He said.

“Mmm…” Kenma said, “You’re lips. They are-”

“I know.” Akiba said through gritted teeth.

Kenma is always shaken up whenever Akiba is in distress, always afraid that his stress will be the breaking point of their relationship. So he goes along with what he says more often than not these days to avoid his yelling. There was a consistent need for Akiba to pick at Kenma’s personality, his tendencies, he knows Kenma best. He knows what’s best for the both of them. Kenma loves Akiba because despite all that he knows he still cares for Kenma. Akiba tells Kenma about himself, his urges, and his uglier sides as well, but he has his secrets and his control. 

Kenma takes the shower head and gently rinse the shampoo out of Akiba’s hair, then dries his hands so he can get him a cigar.

“My hands are wet, light it for me please.” he said, politely.

Kenma settled back down on the edge of the bath, and leaned forward, lighting the cigar from behind. Akiba pulled Kenma into the tub shifting, and splashing the water over the edge. Akiba pulled Kenma into a hug, and it was odd feeling Akiba’s breath all the way down his back, before it met the water. Akiba leaned back after their hug and enjoyed the rest of his cigar. Kenma didn’t like bathing, but he washed his hair and his body anyway.

Unannounced, Akiba put his cigar out on the side of the bath, and got up, toweling himself off.

“I don’t feel like talking.” he said.

Kenma watched as Akiba left the bathroom, he hadn’t said that much today anyway. Kenma dunked himself under the water and laid there for a minute, the dirty water filled his nose as oxygen, slowly left his system. His lungs burned, but under the water was so pretty. Kenma wished that he could see the world wearing goggles filled with pink water. Eventually, the burning got to be too much so Kenma came back up coughing and sputtering water out of his mouth and nostrils.

Kenma drained the water squatting in the bath and watching the water drain in a miniature whirlpool, wishing that he could be a part of that, only a little. This is one of those times that Kenma feels so bitterly alone.

“Kenma, I have an outfit for you on the bed, come downstairs when you’re done getting ready.” Akiba said from the other room.

Kenma got up, he caught a glimpse at his reflection in the mirror, and wondered how he got on the front covers of magazines. He had pimples, and dark eye bags under his eyes. There is an almost hollow look to him, Kenma tried smiling at himself in the mirror. Fake.

As Kenma got dressed he thought of Akiba’s friends. Most of them are aristocrats, they sit around the table and gossip. They are in a higher position then Akiba, he’s friends with them because he wants more money. What happens is they drink, they gossip. Sometimes they have another Omega who they sit by Kenma, thinking that they’ll talk about their insignificant things, but he’s never been able to make good friends with them. Today Kenma was sitting next to an Omega whose inflated head was the largest thing that her skin had to stretch over. She continually made passive aggressive comments towards him, his behavior, his music.

“I mean people can keep that kind of thing to themselves, you know?”

“Can you please shut up?” Kenma asked her.

Akiba nudged Kenma gently with his elbow,

“What?” Kenma snapped.

Akiba leaned in close to Kenma’s ear, “Take a fucking chill pill, you only have to put up with her for another hour or so.”

Kenma rolled his eyes and poured himself a drink, it’s going to be one of those nights again. 

“He is different on stage…” was the last thing that Kenma paid attention to.

Kenma’s one drink turned into several drinks, and a couple pills. After about an hour of small talk and eating the Alphas moved from the dining room into the recreational room, it was decorated darkly and had lots of games with a large flat screen in a high ceiling room. Kenma followed in slowly behind Akiba with his drink clasped in both hands, he glanced at the TV, before tapping Akiba on the shoulder, 

“Can I play games?” he asked.

“Yeah, go ahead.” Akiba said motioning to the cabinet under the TV.

Kenma played games, and drank until well past midnight. One of Akiba’s friends challenged him and was a sore loser, so no one was sitting by Kenma. Kenma sat on the ground a blanket sprawled out around him, he remembers the room being so cold but now it’s too hot. Akiba slid onto the couch, and decided to finish off the rest of Kenma’s drink. Akiba adjusted himself so that Kenma was in between his legs and they sat there for a while as Kenma played. Comfortable with each other’s warmth.

“Kenma,” Akiba lifted Kenma’s head up so that he was looking into Akiba’s eyes.

“Hmm?” Kenma asked.

“Come with me to the yard, I have something for you.” he said.

Kenma got up and followed Akiba outside, it was dark and humid, summer was too hot already. The motion activated lights flicked on when they stepped outside. Kenma placed his bare feet carefully on the pavement outside, it was not helping his feet that he was a little high. Akiba sat down at the edge of the pool, dipping his feet in. Akiba had recently bought this house, so they hadn’t used the pool yet. Kenma followed behind Akiba putting his feet in the lukewarm pool water.

“Kenma, will you marry me?” Akiba asked.

Kenma blinked. Mary… who?

“Yeah,” He was surprised when that quiet whisper left my mouth. “Yes.”

Kenma repeated more confident than the first time.

“I knew it,” Akiba said, triumphantly taking Kenma’s face in his hands, and kissing him on the lips.

Akiba pulled out the ring from his back pocket,

“I wasn't ready,” he said, “But I kind of knew you would say yes.”

“Oh?” Kenma asked, smiling, as he slipped an engagement ring over my finger.

“Who else would ask you to marry them, unless they’re one of your crazy fans.” he told Kenma.

“What?” 

Akiba made a face, and then stood up, “What did you want me to tell you? No one else knows you like I do Kenma, I know everything about you and I still love you, that’s an accomplishment.”

“Oh ok,"

“God it’s too fucking hot, let’s go inside.”

“I’ll just be a few seconds…” Kenma said, staring down at the ring.

It was pretty, beautiful actually, a bright diamond in the middle, twisting gracefully off into a swirl of smaller diamonds. The band was thick, and too big even for Kenma’s thumb, it lopped awkwardly to the side. Kenma laid down, his feet still in the water. He lifted his hand in the air and studied the ring from above, it was going to make this more real.

‘He is right though,’ Kenma thought, ‘no one else would love me if they knew everything about me. Even my parents haven’t contacted me in years.’

Kenma frowned and heaved himself up, enough thinking… 

The next day Kenma woke up to the sound of a vacuum, the maid was behind the couch cleaning up the carpet. Kenma sat up, realizing as he did so that he was naked.

“Oh, shit, sorry!” Kenma said, covering himself with a blanket.

The maid didn’t look up at Kenma as he rushed from the living room protected by his blanket into Akiba’s bedroom. He was lying on the bed with his pants pulled down. Kenma remembered the ring on his finger, it was still there, his fingers subconsciously had been pinning it in place. 

‘Fiance needs attending to.’

Kenma sat the ring down on the dresser, and took off Akiba’s shoes and his pants to replace them with underwear. His shirt would be difficult to remove without waking him up.

Kenma was interrupted by the buzzing of a phone in the sheets. Kenma tossed around the pillows and blankets while searching for the phone, waking up Akiba in the process. Akiba sat up looking grumpy and tired before taking out his phone from underneath him,

“What?” he asked.

Kenma crowded got close to Akiba so that he could listen to what they were talking about. It was Teika on the other side, she was talking too fast for either of them to comprehend.

“What? Teika… I can’t understand what you’re saying it’s… noon…” Akiba said, putting his head in his hands. “Shit it’s late…”

From the other side of the phone Kenma could just barely make out what she was saying.

“Your poolside engagement is all over the web.” she said.

“Oh fuck…” Kenma whispered.

There was a couple moments of silence exchanged between the three of them.

“You need to get out of here now.” Akiba commanded.

“Ok, ok,” Kenma said, gathering his clothes up, pulling them on sloppily.

“I contacted your driver,” Akiba said. “He’ll be here in five minutes, go to your room, stay there until your next show and don’t contact me.”

Kenma nodded, too scared to say anything, but when he went to grab his ring off the dresser Akiba stopped him, grabbing Kenma’s wrist hard enough that his felt it pop out of the socket.

“Ow!” Kenma yanked his hand back, “What the fuck?”

Akiba shook his head at Kenma, and he took his leave, slamming the door behind him. Kenma’s driver wasn’t at the house yet, so Kenma dug through his pockets looking for cigarettes and a lighter. After rummaging through his pockets Kenma found a severely bent out of shape box of cigarettes with a lighter inside. He plopped down in the grass and smoked, collecting his thoughts. 

‘Who did this? What is Akiba going to do? We were supposed to be out about our relationship at some point, “when the company is more stable,” is what he said all those years ago. The company is stable, has been for a couple years, maybe I’m just dumb.’

Kenma’s driver slowly pulled up, parking the car and opening the door for him,

“You don’t have to do that…” Kenma said, putting his cigarette out in the gravel and tossing it in the trash.

“Smoking will ruin your lungs.” said the driver.

“Talking will ruin my peace,” Kenma responded, now he was getting upset.

Kenma’s phone vibrated aggressively in his lap, it was Teika again, man she must be so pissed right now. Kenma picked up the phone.

“Hello?” 

“Kenma? Are you ok?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine, how did the news get out?” Kenma asked.

“One of Akiba’s friends sent it out last night on his social media. A whole post with pictures and videos completely exposing you and Akiba.”

“Oh, well, I mean it’s ok though,” Kenma said, “The company is stable, it was bound to get out eventually.”

“No, Kenma it’s not ok, our entire company is going up in flames right now. Our stocks are dropping and the public is murdering your reputation right now. You might as well have robbed a bank in broad daylight.”

Kenma stayed silent as Teika reprimanded him, and after she hung up there was no conversation between the driver and him. He seemed to feel Kenma’s mood drop. Kenma had turned 21 Akiba had gifted Kenma a small one bedroom apartment near Crimson Idol headquarters, so that is where Kenma’s driver dropped him off. When they arrived at Kenma’s apartment, he let himself out of the car and rushed up the stairs to his apartment. Kenma could feel himself gradually bubbling with rage. Akiba grabbed his arm today, he always does this and now Kenma will have to dish out an apology for something that he’s not sorry for.

Kenma flopped down on his bed face first, the feeling of frustration made him wiggle around, messing his sheets up. Once he had found himself in a comfortable position he took out his phone and began deleting his social media apps. He has gotten a lot of hate throughout his career because of his image, but he never got used to the judgmental comments from strangers. Those comments grated on him everyday, wearing him down and he knew now that it would be much worse. He frowned at his phone, it was so dry without social media, no one texted him. He scrolled through the messages on his phone, and frowned.

“Maybe I should delete some of my contacts…” he said out loud.

Silently, he scrolled through his contact list and there were some people that he deleted immediately, his parents who had made it clear that they didn’t want anything to do with him. Some distant relatives who asked him for money when he started to gain popularity. There were some people from high school that were still on the list, he felt a twinge of sadness thinking back. There was not a lot of high school that Kenma got to enjoy, being away constantly prevented him from making friends and getting good grades. He decided in the end to delete all the contacts from his grade except for Fukunaga and Tora.

Kenma’s finger hesitated over Kuroo’s contact, he wondered if deleting that would be a petty thing to do. They had not talked since the beginning of Kuroo’s college career. Kenma got a happy birthday text from four years ago to which he never responded. For the first time Kenma clicked on the message, it was one of those times… he flicked up through the previous messages, finding that there wasn’t much there. Near the end of their gradually fading relationship Kenma had come to suspect that the only thing holding their bond together was their proximity to one another. They went to the same schools, but neither of them had the same hobbies, interests or goals.

He remembers middle school when he was certain that he had such permanent feelings for Kuroo. It was such a strange time after Kenma confessed to Kuroo because he never clearly vocalized reciprocation towards Kenma, but also never outright rejected Kenma. Kenma shifted on his bed so that he was on his stomach, head laying down on his pillow. He felt the weight of his eyelids suddenly and decided to close them, thinking for a moment about his childhood with Kuroo.

Kenma awoke to the feeling of aggressive buzzing next to his face, he sat up, lazily rubbing his eyes. He sighed heavily and looked down at his phone to see Kuroo’s contact name buzzing clearly on his screen, the little emojis after his name mocked him.

“Oh shit!” Kenma hit the phone of the bed in an aggressive sweep.

The phone hit the wall and laid there on the ground whirring continuously, moving only slightly. Kenma buried his head in his hands, he had accidently pressed on Kuroo’s contact name with his face. The phone stopped after about ten more seconds to Kenma’s great secret embarrassment. After he calmed down Kenma went over to see if his phone was damaged, and to see if (maybe) Kuroo left him a message. He crouched down picking his phone up and inspecting the screen, for damage, immediately. He saw that Kuroo had left him a message on his phone, it was short, seven seconds. Kenma saw his accidental call and Kuroo calling him back along with the voice message.

“Hey, uh, Kenma I saw that you called uh I know we haven’t talked in a while but if you need something you can you know call me.” he said.

Oddly, Kenma couldn’t help but find humor in this situation. He started trying to hold back his smile, but then he couldn’t help himself and started laughing hysterically. This is the worst, it is hard to believe that after all these years of Kenma so vehemently ignoring Kuroo that Kuroo would just pick up the phone and be right there again. Then again Kuroo doesn’t know about Kenma’s behavior, his actions that pushed everyone else close to him out of his life. Kuroo would not be happy to hear about Kenma’s true life, he would distance himself too.

He stood up from his corner and looked at the time, soon he would have to leave for a performance tomorrow afternoon. Kenma normally packed a duffle bag with some clothes that he didn’t wear, because the stylists and games that he rarely played because of the minimal amount of time that he actually had for himself.

3:07 PM

Kenma peeked in his closet, at the floor there were tons of stuffed animals, gifts and letters all tossed in one place for safe keeping. They were marked by Alphas mostly but there were some Omegas who marked things too, despite the uncomfortable insinuation. Kenma studied the floor for a couple seconds before remembering that he needed to get clothes from a barren closet.

“Where did all my clothes go?” Kenma asked.

He turned around and saw that most of them were scattered across the room, thrown in sloppy patternless rhythms.

“Need to do laundry I guess…” he murmured.

Slowly, Kenma kicked around and choraled his laundry into a medium sized pile in the corner of his bedroom. He flopped back down on the bed afterward, deciding that it was time to take a nap again. He nuzzled into his pillowing murmuring about how tired he was.

Kenma woke up to his manager shaking him awake, she was agitated with him today.

“Hey, I called you like six times this morning, why the fuck is your phone all the way over there?” she asked.

Sometimes, Teika behaved more like Kenma’s mom and she cared for him, other times she treated him more as an annoyance than a client. She usually did the later when she was tired, and it was apparent that right now she was very tired.

“Sorry…” Kenma apologized.

“You have a schedule today, we need to get you ready.” she paused. “I know that it’s hard with all that information that got leaked to feel motivated to continue to work like this, but you need to power through it, ok?”

“I didn’t want to deal with it at all, I deleted the apps off of my phone.” Kenma explained, “Am I going to have to make an apology?”

“Hmm Akiba doesn’t want you to, so no.” she said. “I’m honestly surprised that you two made it this long in a relationship.”

He shrugged, “I guess.”

Kenma knew that he would be losing too much to ever leave Akiba, he had no other talents, or work skills, and most of all very little money. Akiba rarely let Kenma accrue more than $100 in his bank account. Teika held Kenma’s hand for a minute, for some time Teika thought that her and Kenma could get away once Kenma became popular enough, but there was always something that held her back from saving Kenma. The biggest obstacle was Akiba himself, if Kenma suddenly disappeared Akiba would hunt him down to the ends of the earth. Teika knew a lot of the horrible things that Akiba did to people who betrayed him and she didn’t want that to happen to Kenma, or to herself. Kenma didn’t know how innocent he was to Akiba’s crimes. Teika huffed, and patted the back of Kenma’s hand, 

“Alright, let’s go.” she said.

They both got up and left Kenma’s dreary apartment building to a new stage, for Kenma to get ready. It was early in the morning, the sun's light was just starting to appear on the horizon. Teika handed Kenma a BlueWater Energy drink as they drove, it did have it’s way with Kenma, giving him a lot more life.

“Don’t drink too much before we get there.” said Teika, pulling the drink from Kenma’s mouth as he continued to guzzle it down in the car ride.

Behind stage Kenma was getting ready, it was for a special outdoor solo concert since summer was arriving and he would soon be preparing for another comeback for the winter time this was his last outdoor concert for awhile. Most of the time spent backstage was getting him ready, putting his outfits in order, applying makeup. Kenma spent some time rehearsing dances, normally he would have checked his social media, but he didn’t know when he would be ready for that storm. Kenma sat in a chair backstage fidgeting with his games, but he felt restless because of his nerves, he couldn’t concentrate well. He continued like this until Akiba came in, which instantly perked him, Kenma hugged him and clung to Akiba.

“I missed you…” Kenma said.

Akiba pried Kenma off, not saying anything he plopped down in the chair that Kenma had been sitting on. Kenma frowned,

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

Kenma straddled Akiba’s lap for a second only to have Akiba push him off, making Kenma stumble backwards, almost falling to the ground.

“Why did you even come here if you’re just going to pout like a baby?” Kenma huffed, and walked off.

Kenma walked to his position where he would be brought on stage, he shuffled around his dancers, they could tell that he was not in a good mood today. An hour and a half of sleep plus a disagreement made him moody. He pulled himself together a little and smiled, prepping for the stage. Teika came up to him, making adjustments to his hair,

“Do good.”

Was all she said to him before he got onstage, he acted happy and hyper like he really really wanted to be there. After a couple songs in he did want to be there, performing was adrenaline rushing and oddly addicting for him. The concert was going by too fast, one minute it started and the next he was halfway done. That was when Kenma got to rest for a couple minutes, go backstage and change his clothes. He was sweaty and out of breath, vaguely he heard his name being called but he dismissed it as he walked to his dressing room.

“Kenma!” it was yelled clearer now and he felt someone grab onto both his shoulders.

Kenma gasped and yanked away only to find that it was Akiba gripping him.

“Don’t fucking ignore me.” Akiba hissed.

Kenma angrily stomped away, slamming the door to his dressing room behind him and locking it. Kenma’s stylist handed him his new clothes and Kenma began to change. Akiba was beating on the door, threatening Kenma if he didn’t come out right this second. 

“Shouldn’t you answer that?” Asked one of the stylists.

Kenma shrugged, trying to play it cool, but he felt panic set in his bones, he was trembling. He struggled with the buttons on his pants he was shaking so badly, he didn’t want to answer the door he was afraid of what might happen when he did. Kenma spotted his drink on the table with all of his makeup, so he chugged the rest of it down, slipping in a mix of hazardous pills along with the drink.

“Ok,” Kenma sighed, and opened the door up.

Akiba immediately seized Kenma’s shoulders shaking him violently before letting him go, Kenma stumbled almost falling to the ground.

“What is wrong with you?!” he yelled.

Kenma’s vision was going wild with blurriness at this point, he was so far gone that he couldn’t even get upset that he was being shaken around. He steadied himself against a wall,

“Nothing…” he said, “I’m going on stage.”

Akiba grabbed Kenma by his hair and pulled him back as Kenma tried to walk away.

“Don’t sass me, you can’t treat me that way…” Akiba gritted teeth spoke directly into Kenma’s ear.

“You’re going to ruin my hair.” Kenma said curtly.

Akiba yanked Kenma around until Kenma stumbled and fell to the ground.

“You would be nothing without me!” he yelled, “I made you!”

“You ruined me…” Kenma said, sitting up on his knees, “You know… my mom may have pushed my limits sometimes but she never would have treated me the way you do.”

Kenma looked into Akiba’s eyes, “Why?” asked Kenma.

“She would treat you like this too if she knew you the way that I did,” Akiba said, “she left after she found out the little bits that she did. She treated you like dirt under her nails Kenma.”

Akiba was satisfied, he knew that he got in the last words as one of Kenma’s dancers pulled him off the ground by his wrist rushing him toward the stage where the other dancers were gathered.

“I’m sorry Kozume,” the dancer apologized, “I was getting scared watching that.”

“It’s ok,” Kenma said, “You can just call me Kenma.”

Kenma took a deep breath, ‘just forget about it,’ he thought.

“Ok, ok, let’s go.” Kenma smiled now, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.

His dancer gave him a thumbs up and they ran out onto the stage into their positions. The music started up, after Kenma’s first move he began to feel hot. He felt himself sweating, the warmth felt like a fever it was not the lights on the stage that were making him feel this hot. He slowed his dancing down, and took off his jacket as fast as he could, tossing it to the side of the stage. Soon after he did that he felt his chest constrict, his heart was palpitating wildly in his chest. He stopped singing and dancing completely, he stood in the middle of the stage limply staring at the ground, trying to breathe in. Kenma felt a hand on his shoulder, but before he got a chance to look up he leaned over and puked on the ground between his legs.

His microphone dropped on the ground, and he felt dizzy, the music was still blasting around him, in his ear his headpiece was glitching out of control. Kenma moaned vomiting again before a security guard came on stage a retrieved him. Kenma’s world was spinning and he felt like he was on fire, he could hear his managers voice buzzing in the background of his ringing ears. He was rushed out into the parking lot into his drivers car, the hospital was nearby so it was easier to drive there than to call an ambulance. Kenma sat alone in the backseat of the car, curled up in a ball feeling his chest constricting, he could barely breathe at all.


	11. Reconnection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm back on my weekly schedule of posting on Mondays for a couple of weeks! I can't wait to see actual progress happening in the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS  
> Cursing  
> Overdose mention  
> Mention of suicide (nothing graphic)

When Fukunaga couldn’t sleep at night Tora liked to try his best to stay up with him, though his most recent attempt was failing as he kept nodding off quietly in his spot on the coach. While Tora napped Fukunaga was focused intensely on the TV screen in front of him, currently Fukunaga was the only Omega on the Japanese national volleyball team, and he was studying volleyball more rigorously than ever. He clicked the rewind button and watched the same moves over again sometimes ten times before he decided to continue watching the rest of the videos.

Fukunaga’s phone buzzed on the coffee table in front of him, waking up Tora from his rest and pulling Fukunaga from his game. The number was not from one of his contacts, but Fukunaga picked up the phone anyway,

“Hello?” he asked.

“Hi! This is The University of Tokyo Hospital, may I ask who I am speaking to?” A friendly voice spoke through the phone.

“Ah,” Fukunaga glanced at Tora confused, “Shouhei Fukunaga.”

“Perfect! You’re still able and willing to be Kozume Kenma’s emergency contact correct?”

“Oh, yes,” said Fukunaga.

Tora remembered the day that Kenma asked if Fukunaga could be his emergency contact. They had been second years, and Kenma seemed upset at the time. He said that he needed Fukunaga “just in case something happened.” It was scary to hear him talking like that, but Fukunaga agreed anyway, and neither of them had changed it since. Kenma hadn’t contacted either Tora or Fukunaga in over five years at this point.

“I can be at the hospital in about an hour,” Fukunaga said.

“Ok!” said the person on the other end, “Thank you!”

Fukunaga hung up the phone, and got up heading towards his room.

“Hold on,” said Tora, “What’s happening with Kenma? Are you actually going to the hospital?”

“Kenma overdosed,” Fukunaga said. “Right now he is in the ER, so I have to go.”

“Well, slow down,” said Tora, “Let’s go together.”

Fukunaga nodded, he didn’t tell Tora but he was feeling pretty nervous about this. He never expected to actually have to act as Kenma’s emergency contact, but he was ready. The day that Kenma asked Fukunaga about it he gave Fukunaga papers, in private, that had his medical history, telling him he just needed to bring this with him if there was ever an emergency. Fukunaga did not know what sparked Kenma suddenly changing his emergency contact but he thought at the time that Kenma would tell him when he was ready. That was before Kenma began to float away from Nekoma, and all of his friends.

Tora and Fukunaga met at the front door, where they put on their shoes together. Fukunaga followed Tora out the door, neither of them had a car so they rode on the train together. It was surprisingly busy for it being so late at night, Tora and Fukunaga both stood gripping the railings as they swayed with the train. There was a heavy feeling in Fukunaga’s stomach, Kenma getting into any type of drug was not something that he had expected from him. Kenma was a good student up until his third year, a good friend even if he had drifted away, and he seemed so motivated in his own way. Fukunaga’s mind began to wander to the worst case scenarios, Kenma being pressured, and then giving in. Kenma being put in these horrible, vulnerable situations. There was a sense of dread for Fukunaga to meet Kenma again, but mostly he was just concerned.

The train stopped near the hospital entrance, there was a large platform with a couple exhausted, young students in scrubs waiting to go home.

“God this university is so fucking big,” Tora said, looking around in awe.

There were several university hospital buildings, the lawns of which were decorated and maintained throughout the year to a tee. There were lightings along the edges of the sidewalk leading up to the hospital entrance. The stars were drowned out by the lights, and Fukunaga couldn't help but think about how dearly he missed the stars at that moment.

“Oh, I hate revolving doors.” said Fukunaga when they arrived at the entrance.

“My mom broke her arm on one of these once.” mentioned Tora.

Fukunaga nodded, but did not tell Tora that that was the reason why he held so much hatred towards revolving doors. Tora had told him the story of his mother in excruciating detail at one point during school, and it made him nauseous just thinking about it.

“At least we’ll be at the hospital when our limbs are crushed.” said Fukunaga, before nervously darting in between the two swinging doors.

Tora followed, more slowly after Fukunaga and they walked up to the receptionists desk to ask where Kenma was. Kenma was no longer in the emergency room, he was checked into a room on the third floor, so Tora and Fukunaga took an elevator up to his room.

“Do you think he’s even awake right now?” asked Tora.

Fukunaga shrugged, “I don’t know, we don’t have to stay all night, just let him know that we are here.”

Tora nodded, as they approached Kenma’s room they noticed the amount of buzz surrounding it. There was a tall Alpha, dressed in a suit standing outside of Kenma’s room being interviewed by the police. And there were nurses as well occasionally peeking into the room to take a look at the celebrity. As Fukunaga and Tora got closer to the door they were stopped by one of the nurses,

“He’s asleep right now,” they said.

“I know,” said Fukunaga, “I’m his emergency contact.”

The nurse paused, “I’m sorry, but be careful he’s exhausted and needs to rest.”

Both Tora and Fukunaga nodded. Tora opened the door up for Fukunaga who walked in the first thing that caught his eye was the muted TV playing the news. Afterward was Kenma, who was asleep in the bed, he looked tired and pale.

“This is a really nice room.” Tora whispered enthusiastically.

Tora settled down in a plush chair near the window of the hospital room, while Fukunaga sat near Kenma’s bedside, studying him closer. It had been a long time since Fukunaga had seen Kenma in person, Kenma was blonde and his eyebrows were bleached to match. Fukunaga got stuck on the eyebrows for a minute. Until the Alpha being questioned by the police came in,

“Excuse me,” he says, “You’re Kenma’s family?”

“His emergency contact.” Fukunaga replied.

“Ah, ok, I just want to let you know that at the moment there is a lot going on, if you can get Kenma home as soon as possible tomorrow that would be greatly to his benefit.” 

Fukunaga nodded, and the Alpha left, he glanced over at Tora to see that he had fallen asleep in his chair. So Fukunaga sat back and flipped through the channels on the TV. After a couple hours of sitting there watching an old comedy TV show, Kenma woke up. He was groggy, but he recognized Fukunaga immediately.

“Fukunaga,” he said, he was smiling.

“Oh,” Fukunaga checked the time on his phone, “Good morning.”

“Why are you here?” Kenma asked.

“The hospital called, they told me that you asked for me to come.” said Fukunaga.

Kenma shook his head, “I don’t remember, sorry.”

There was a moment of silence between the two of them where Fukunaga thought that maybe he should ask him what was wrong, but he stayed silent.

“It’s been a long time…” said Kenma.

Fukunaga nodded, he was mostly focusing on his hands, he felt an intense knot in his stomach.

“What happened? Do you remember?” asked Fukunaga.

Kenma shrugged his shoulders, “No I don’t remember much of what happened, I remember being taken off stage and then I woke up here.”

Kenma looked over at the chair that Tora was sat in,

“Is that Tora?”

“Yeah,” said Fukunaga.

“He looks old as fuck.” Kenma said.

“That is so rude,” Tora said, his eyes still closed.

“I don’t lie,” Kenma responded.

“Just because you’re in a hospital does not mean I won’t fight you.” Tora said.

Kenma smirked, “Sure, whatever you say.”

Fukunaga felt tension leave his back, everything was returning to normal, no one had to act weird or different with each other. Despite Kenma and Tora’s talking Kenma still fell back asleep a couple minutes later out of sheer exhaustion. Tora and Fukunaga took this as a signal to leave for a little while, they decide to go home to get rest as well as get their work in order. Fukunaga showed up to the hospital early in the morning with two cups of coffee, he balanced sugar and creamer on top. When he finally arrived on Kenma’s floor there were two cops standing outside of Kenma’s room glancing inside occasionally.

“What’s happening?” asked Fukunaga.

“We are notifying Kenma of the death of someone close to him.” said the cop vaguely.

“Oh no,” said Fukunaga.

Fukunaga peeked in the room, Kenma was staring up at the officer who was informing, his expression was blank. Fukunaga couldn’t hear what was being said, but Kenma nodded and stared down at his knees. For a minute the officer stayed there, waiting for Kenma to cry but tears never came, so he gave Kenma’s shoulder a pat and walked out. Fukunaga came into the room and sat the coffee down on Kenma’s bedside table.

“Are you ok?” asked Fukunaga.

Kenma nodded, “Yeah, I’m fine. They just- they found my managers body in her house last night, she hung herself…”

Fukunaga paused for a second, “Were you are your manager close?”

Kenma shrugged, he was surprised that he couldn’t feel anything about this news, “You bought coffee?”

“Mhm,”

“Thank you, they’ve only been bringing me juice… I feel too awkward to say that I don’t want it.”

Fukunaga smiled, “No problem, when do you think you’ll be ready to check out?”

“I’m pretty much ready now,” said Kenma, “I have my clothes from yesterday…”

“Did you want me to leave?” asked Fukunaga.

“No, you’re fine,” Kenma said, tugging up his pants under the covers.

As they left one of the nurses expressed their concern about Kenma’s health, they told him that he was underweight, over producing pheremones, and in great need. But Kenma brushed off her concerns and told her that if he needed help he would seek it and he felt perfectly fine. The hardest thing was getting Kenma home, there were seemingly endless amounts of fans and reporters who wanted to see Kenma. Fukunaga was shocked once again by Kenma’s immense popularity, Kenma clung to Fukunaga’s free hand, gripping him tightly so that they wouldn’t get separated. But once they were sitting on the train together, no one bothered them, though Kenma did look out of place in his stage outfit.

When they arrived back at Kenma’s apartment Fukunaga was surprised at how small it was, it looked so average.

“It’s small…” said Fukunaga.

“I don’t have a whole lot of money,” Kenma said, “Actually, I think I might still have debts to pay to some of my trainers…”

“Oh, I didn’t expect that…”

Kenma checked his mailbox picking out a large chunk of mail, including a rather large envelope signed to him.

“Do you get lots of fan mail here?” asked Fukunaga.

“No, this apartment isn’t rented under my name, it was under Teika’s name and nobody knows who she is.” he said.

When they got inside Kenma’s apartment Fukunaga was disappointed. Scattered across the floor was empty food containers and clothes. The apartment barely looked suitable for living in, but Kenma plopped himself on the ground near an open window, lit a cigarette and began sorting through his mail.

“It’s disgusting in here…” Fukunaga said.

“Hmm, I got my managers will already,” said Kenma, “It might have enough money to help me pay rent…”

Fukunaga began cleaning up the apartment little by little as Kenma read through Teika’s will. Kenma felt his heart pounding in his head, Teika left Kenma nearly everything that she had, clothes, her house, stocks from various companies. As Kenma finished leafing through the document a card fell out of the bottom, it was Teika’s attorneys number it read,

“If you need any help interrupting the documents please contact me!!!!!”

It had a small winky face holding up a peace sign on it.

That’s very professional thought Kenma.


	12. Passion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's short,,, i'm sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS  
> depressed a little I guess  
> there's not much in this chapter

Normally, Kuroo has a rule with himself, he’s not allowed on his phone until after he brushed his teeth in the morning. Because otherwise he stays in bed all day scrolling through his phone and being generally unproductive, and who can afford that in today’s economy?

But today… when he opened his phone to turn his alarm off he saw a fleeting glance of Kenma’s name. At first he thought, ‘maybe Kenma called me again…’ he clearly remembered the night that Kenma had called him. It was a late night, sometime near an important deadline, Kuroo couldn’t recall what he was working on if he tried to. He was so focused that he didn’t notice his phone ringing at first, and at the time his girlfriend called him on a whim, so he thought nothing of it until he saw the name on the screen. He froze up and stared at it in his hand, what on earth would Kenma be calling him for? Kuroo sat there for a minute before the phone ringing halted, and he decided that he better call him back, just in case.

Kenma didn’t answer the phone, so Kuroo left a voice message trying not to sound too desperate for Kenma’s attention. Kuroo saw Kenma’s name everywhere, saw pictures and advertisements of him plastered on the wall in subways, and on billboards. There wasn’t a time where Kuroo could forget that Kenma existed, but he had forgotten that Kenma was someone that he could contact, talk to. Someone that he used to talk to everyday, it made him nostalgic and sad. That night he wondered what Kenma was like now that he was all grown up.

However Kenma had not called Kuroo again, it was Kuroo’s Twitter app desperately sending him messages to get back on. Kuroo had stopped using Twitter so long ago that it tried to send him messages about the trending topics to get him hooked back in. It never worked until this morning when he saw that Kenma’s name was trending. The first thing on the page was a video of Kenma puking all over himself on stage, he looked weak and tired, the video cut off after Kenma was escorted off stage. Kuroo scrolled through the tag a lot of it was upset fans, people commenting on overworking people to this point. But the video didn’t just look like he was overworked he looked like he was dying. Kuroo scrolled through to the bottom of the tag one of the last posts was a meme, poking fun at Kenma’s weakness, Kuroo frowned, but when he clicked on it he saw that most people liked the meme. They thought that meme was funny, Kuroo looked at it again, and then turned off his phone.

“Enough of that for today,” he said, setting his phone down and rolling over in his bed.

Now he had to find the motivation to get up in the morning, it was hard to get out of bed lately. Some days he showed up to lectures late, especially the morning ones, he’s grandma said that it was unlike him to be late to school. In high school he was rarely ever late or absent, he went jogging before school and still had time to go wake up Kenma in the morning. Kuroo wondered were all that motivation went… 

Kuroo gets up, showers and heads to class, skipping breakfasts, because he knew if he ate that he would be late. He looked through some of the messages on his phone, Bo was harping him about visiting the library again today, he had a project due later this week that he should have finished weeks ago. There was an email on his phone from a professor for one of his early morning classes who wanted to have a meeting with him in private after class. Kuroo let out a sigh as he typed up a response about meeting up today after class, just last week he had a meeting with a different professor talking about his dropping grades. Kuroo rationed it to the classes that he had just getting harder, but deep down he knew it was because he was not trying as hard as he should. There was just no joy in school or work to him anymore, but he felt like it was too late in the game to turn back.

But for once Kuroo actually showed up on time to class and it went smoothly, this was more of a lab based class, so they had demonstrations and experiments they did, it was fun when Kuroo felt like participating and today was a good day. Until his meeting with the professor, who motioned for him to come to the front soon after class was dismissed.

“I got your email about the meeting, if could wait in my office for like five seconds while I set up for my next class, please?” she asked.

“Sure,” Kuroo said, and wandered out into the hallway to find her office.

He hadn’t visited with professors a lot one on one until this year when he found that his motivation was dropping like crazy. He waited near where he thought her office was for a few minutes, and checked his phone going to the Kenma tag despite saying it was enough this morning. This time he clicked on the article at the top and it went through what happened to Kenma the night prior. Kenma had a drug overdose, and had been at the hospital up until really early this morning around 7:00. Suddenly, the meme that he had seen earlier that morning made sense, even if it still wasn’t funny. There were pictures of Kenma leaving the hospital, he looked well composed for someone who had been puking his guts up a few hours ago. The article ended wishing Kenma good luck, despite saying some intrusive and subtly rude things about him in the article. Kuroo was interrupted from his thoughts by his teacher coming around the corner,

“Hi, sorry about that,” she said, motioning him into her office.

“It’s ok,” Kuroo said, and sat down across from her.

“Anyway, I brought you here for a warning about your grades, I know at the start of the semester I reminded the class that this is a vital course for your major, and if you fail out of the class you drop your major as a repercussion.”

“I’m aware…” Kuroo said.

Though on the first day he doesn’t remember a whole lot, the classes tended to blend together due to introductions being basically the same.

“The class is pretty small, so I can keep up with grades better than some of my more intro level classes and I noticed you’re slipping…” she said with a deep sigh, “You’re entered in really dedicated classes now, if you don’t have the ability to keep up you might have to drop out, and I would hate for you to have wasted your time.”

Kuroo felt a lump in his throat, he felt he deserved this partially, but it didn’t stop him from feeling bad about it. He nodded his head,

“I’ll try harder in the future,”

“Please, start trying harder today, this is an important career path and it takes you trying your hardest to succeed, to help other people.” she said.

Kuroo nodded, “Yeah, I agree and I’m sorry, I’ll do better today.”

Kuroo held back from telling her how much pressure he felt all the time, because he knew that she would say that every student felt that stress and they were doing better than he was. He took a deep breath in, trying to keep his composure.

“Thank you,” she said, “This meeting wasn’t meant to frighten you, just to bring awareness to you about the rules again.”

Kuroo nodded, “Yeah, um thank you, I’ll see you later then.”

She nodded, “See you later.”

Once Kuroo left he went to the bathroom and stayed there for a couple minutes as he felt himself tearing up. He managed to keep himself together and leave the stall to head to his next class.

‘I got it over with at least,’ he thought.

He trudged to his next class, this one was more boring than anything else, it was one of the few lecture classes that Kuroo had left. After lunch and then work again, Kuroo got his license as a certified nursing assistant (CNA) thinking that would help him with his future endeavors and has so far it’s lead to nothing but stress and exhaustion. In class Kuroo took lame notes in a daze until it was finished and rushed out of the class as soon as he could. He headed straight towards the dining center in the middle of campus, he hadn’t eaten there in a long time, and because he no longer lived on campus he didn’t have a meal plan.

While he was eating he couldn’t help but check Kenma’s tag for a third time that day. This time there was someone else's name also trending near the top. It was someone named Akiba, a name that was vaguely familiar to Kuroo. Turns out Akiba was Crimson Idol’s CEO and he fled the country soon after Kenma left the concert, there was a whole list of crimes that he allegedly committed throughout his time managing Crimson Idol. There was also some sort of criminal investigation going on with Blue Water Energy drinks for contamination of their products, apparently the two companies were very close.

Kuroo scrolled through the tag awhile and then went through the Crimson Idol tag as well, there were a lot of employee arrests in their tags. 

“What even is this world?” Kuroo muttered to himself as he ate.

After Kuroo finished eating he headed straight to work, working from 2:00 to 11:00 wasn’t a bad shift for Kuroo, it paid but left very little time for homework until late. He worked at a nursing home, so he worked with mostly the same clients consistently, he knew what Monday evenings were like, chaotic.

At work there was constant running back and forth between halls, the nursing home was understaffed constantly, and it lead to mistreatment of the poor old people living there. Kuroo did put an honest effort into making their lives better, and because of that was a favorite among most of the residents. They told him that they wanted him to work there full time but he didn’t have the time with school. Though it would be difficult emotionally to quit working, he liked the residents, listening to their stories and laughing at their jokes. Most of Kuroo’s younger life was spent with his grandparents and he sometimes talked to older people better than the people his age.

After work Kuroo called Kiari and talked to her on his walk home, he did this most nights, knowing that she was probably up late stressing over a deadline for her work. Soon after Kiari graduated college she was able to get an apartment of her own to live in, she invited Kuroo but he declined at the time. Kiari had been offered a high up job in journaling for a “digital magazine,” Kuroo called it a blog.

“Hey,” she said, sounding exhausted.

“You ok?” asked Kuroo.

“Mmmm, yeah just work stress, keeps me up all night.” she said, “My boss always snaps at me over email about not having work done fast enough, but then takes two hours to reply to every email that I send…”

Kuroo passed by a little candy shop, one that he hadn’t noticed before and he suddenly thought,

“Do you want to get married?” he asked.

There was a pause, “I’m sorry, what?”

“Do you want to marry me?”

“Yeah, I do want to marry you, why are you asking so suddenly?” she asked.

“I don’t know, I guess it just popped into my head right now.”


	13. Epiphany

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My chapters are always going to be up late just thought that should be addressed. I wrote this chapter in a day and it was hell! I've been trying to make my stories where characters introduce themselves with pronouns, and I tried to add it in smoothly I hope that it doesn't sound bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING  
> Drugs  
> Swearing  
> Abuse  
> Depression  
> A little bittle of harassment you know

“Oh this is a big ass house…” said Tora in wonder.

Kenma, Tora and Fukunaga stood outside of Kenma’s manager’s house, with Kenma’s two things of luggage in hand. The investigation of her death had taken nearly a month, and was extremely thorough because of Akiba’s sudden disappearance. Crimson Idol went under investigation almost immediately after Kenma’s overdose, and it was found to be a corrupt company. The one that stuck out the most to Kenma was the fact that the man who had leaked their engagement was found dead in his apartment not long after the news came out. The list of crimes seemed endless, and it wasn’t just Akiba who was in deep trouble. During that month there seemed to be endless, grueling interviews, asking questions about the most minute details of Kenma’s life and interactions with his CEO and his manager. He was glad that it was over with now.

“It  _ is _ pretty big,” Kenma said, pulling the key to the house out of his back pocket.

Kenma fidgeted with the lock for a second his hand shaking as he did so, he was nervous about moving in, nervous about people coming over and nervous about finding some sort of alcohol to tide him over for a little while. His head was hurting a lot, and he did not want to feel the withdrawal symptoms again. Not again.

“Teika’s family is coming over later today to claim their things too.” said Kenma, leaving his luggage by the door and heading to the kitchen.

Kenma rummaged through the drawers of the kitchen as Fukunaga wondered in after Kenma, studying the house a little. Tora continued to look around the rest of the house, deciding to explore by himself.

“What are you looking for?” asked Fukunaga.

“Ah- did you want tea or something? I’m sure that Teika has some…” Kenma said.

Kenma began looking through the cabinets and peeked in the fridge, to be greeted by the smell of rancid food. He quickly shut the fridge door,

“We can deal with that later…” Kenma smiled.

Fukunaga shook his head and went to the fridge to start cleaning it out, while Kenma began to put the kettle on for their tea. By the time that the tea was done the fridge was pretty much empty and the there was a trash bag nearly overflowing with expired food. Kenma and Fukunaga sat at the kitchen counter sipping tea, and soon Tora joined them.

“This house is big!” exclaimed Tora. “I can’t believe you’re going to be living here.”

Kenma shrugged, “I have the money now, so I don’t see why not.”

Tora sighed, “One day I’ll say that.”

“Sure,” said Kenma, smiling and patting him on the back.

“What you don’t think I can?!” challenged Tora.

“I have to go to the restroom,” Kenma said, and made his way down the hall to the master bedroom.

He could hear Tora mumbling on the way out of the kitchen. Kenma was shocked at the sight of Teika’s barren room. The sheets from her bed were striped away, and her curtains were no longer in place. Everything was so sterile, there was nothing on the dressers or walls, Kenma held back a deep sigh,

“Dammit,” he muttered.

He looked through the drawers of her dressers anyway, searching for anything pills, needles anything. Finally, in the bottom of her dresser he found several jewelry boxes, mostly filled with sparkly earrings and glamorous necklaces, but it also had a small bag of pills. He unzipped the bag and tilted his head back swallowing two of the pills in one go. Kenma would have felt relief if hadn’t smelled an upset Alpha in the room,

“Kenma, what the fuck are you doing?!” Tora yelled, rushing over to him.

Kenma cringed down, preparing for the impact of a palm to his face, but there was none. The bag was snatched out of his hands, but Tora didn’t yell or scream at him as he stormed out of the room. Kenma almost wished that the room was filled with yelling, so he could feel something else besides his friend’s crushing disappointment towards him. Kenma turned towards the door and Fukunaga was there in the doorway, looking confused. There was a tense silent stare between the two Omegas until they heard a door slamming in the distance.

“I’m sorry,” Kenma whispered.

Fukunaga’s look turned more concerned than confused, he walked slowly and sat next to Kenma on the ground.

“Maybe you should go to therapy or a rehabilitation center…”

Kenma nodded, “Yeah, maybe I should. Not today though Teika’s family…”

Kenma shut the dresser drawer and stood up,

“Let’s go finish our tea.”

In the kitchen, Kenma sat on his chair, his cheek pressed against the table, tracing lines that weren’t there. Fukunaga sat silently next to Kenma, he didn’t want to leave Kenma by himself, but he also didn’t know what to do. The tea got cold by the time that the doorbell rang, Kenma was on his feet almost immediately. He greeted Teika’s family at the door and showed them in, they were two Betas and they both looked almost exactly like Teika. Kenma stared for a second, the long, graceful yet harsh lines Teika was a spitting image of her mother.

“Good afternoon Mrs. Nishimura,” said Kenma, politely.

They bowed to each other and the two Betas stepped in following Kenma into the formal living room.

“I can show you around the house,” said Kenma, “I have the list of things that she left for you, but you’re welcome to any of the extra sentimental things that she may have left out.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Teika’s mother. “I’ve been shown the house, and I know were I and her sister’s inheritance is.”

Mrs. Nishimura walked quickly through the house, Kenma following at a more gradual pace behind her, unsure of what to do. Kenma thought that it was strange that Teika had her mother in her will, like she expected to pass before her mother did. In fact, the more Kenma thought about it, it was strange that Teika had such a well defined will at such a young age, she was only 38 after all and still coming into her career. Mrs. Nishimura was done collecting their items after about fifteen minutes, she had a medium size box, filled with photo albums and other small valuables. She plopped the box down in the living room, next to the couch and grabbed her purse.

“Here is the invitation to Teika’s funeral later this month.” she said.

“Thank you,”

With that she got up and left the house with her other daughter who had not said a word the entire visit. Kenma slumped down on the couch,

“I don’t think that they liked me that much,” he said.

“Well, their daughter gave you the house and most of the money. She may not have had a good relationship with her parents either.” said Fukunaga, who came in and sat beside Kenma on the couch.

Kenma nodded and mindlessly flicked on the TV.

“I like watching TV like this,” he whispered.

“What does it feel like?” asked Fukunaga.

“Right now, it feels kind of blank like just empty, but sometimes it feels great like I get to feel so happy…” said Kenma.

“Do you remember everything that happens?” asked Fukunaga.

“Sometimes, sometimes I don’t and that’s a little… scary.” said Kenma. “Did you want to try? If you don’t like it, you don’t have to do it again.”

Fukunaga thought for a second, hesitating as he had never done drugs before he didn’t know what it was like. Seeing Kenma blissed out and happy, it made him curious as much as he was apprehensive.

“Yeah,” Fukunaga said, “Yeah, I kinda do.”

“Ok,” said Kenma.

Kenma left and got more from the bottom drawer in Teika’s room. There was plenty of spare in her room, and there was probably more somewhere in the house Kenma thought. Kenma padded back into the living room, and handed a little baggy with pills in it to Fukunaga. He took one out and swallowed it,

“Mm how did you swallow two without water?” Fukunaga asked.

“I don’t know,” Kenma laid down, putting his arm over his eyes, happy.

After a couple minutes Fukunaga began to giggle randomly at the TV. He suddenly understood what Kenma meant when he said that he had fun with this stuff. It was fun. Kenma and Fukunaga stayed like that in the living room until nearly two in the morning, they got up and jumped around to show’s theme songs, getting nostalgic when the late night cartoons came on. There was no better feeling.

The next day, Fukunaga woke up early and left for work, he had taken time off to help Kenma out but that is over now.

“You can come back tonight if you want.” Kenma said, he was groggy with sleep.

“Sure,” Fukunaga said, “It was more fun than I thought.”

Kenma nodded eagerly, he was happy to be meeting with one of his friends again. He wouldn’t be lonely anymore, no more trying to call Akiba or staying up late crying because he felt lonely. New house means a newer, better life. Soon after Fukunaga left Kenma got a ding on his phone, letting him know that he was meeting with a bunch of lawyers this afternoon. They were discussing the fate of the Crimson Idol company, and since Kenma had previously owned a large portion of stock from Crimson Idol he was supposed to be part of the meeting. He had sold the stock soon after inheriting it, knowing full well that the stocks were going to drop after his big overdose scandal. He was surprised when he got a phone call to attend that meeting, but he didn’t want to deny the offer to attend and help seal the company’s fate. 

His lawyer told him that it was probably best to side with those that wanted to shut the company down, because that was the opinion of the public majority, and Kenma needed to clear his image. His lawyer also said that he would be fighting against the other stockholders in this position, they had money in the company, they didn’t want the company to fail. But since Kenma no longer had stock in the company all he had to do was help get the company shut down and his ties would be severed for the most part. No more idol job, but lots of compensation money. Drug addiction is a disease, is what he told Kenma. Kenma disagreed, he was not a drug addict.

Kenma sighed and sat up in bed, Fukunaga and him had put bedsheets on Teika’s bed again, but looking at it now they had put the sheets on completely wrong. The fitted sheets were coming off the sides of the bed, and the comforter itself was put on the wrong way the tag had hit Kenma in the face the whole night.

“Oops.” Kenma said.

He left the bed alone for the moment and went to the master bathroom. He needed to look professional today, and act like he knew what he was talking about. Kenma started the shower, setting it on a hot setting, something about hot showers made him feel cleaner. Teika had all sorts of fancy soaps in her bathroom, and Kenma lathered himself in them, feeling himself up and down.

Soon his pheromones began to overpower the gentle scent of the soap, Kenma leaned up against the wall. One of the doctors at the hospital had actually told him about a pheromone steroid that he had accidentally been taking with his BlueWater Energy drink. He said that he was way overproducing pheromones due to that steroid, and that eventually if he stopped taking them that his production would go back to normal, but it felt like it wasn’t. That was another reason that Kenma had come to Teika’s house, the few times that he left his apartment he could smell his own pheromones outside his door, and he began to think that his neighbors were actually enjoying the scent in their free time. It was embarrassing, especially when he was feeling… horny. Kenma felt humiliated by the memory, but oddly still turned on under the hot shower water.

Just get it over with. Just get it over with. He thought as he rubbed himself faster until he came, panting. It was never that satisfying, not really.

Kenma turned up the heat until it scalded his skin, until he was clean again. But when he stepped out of the shower all he could smell was his own sickly sweet scent still. He dried off with a towel thoroughly, and was about to put lotion on his skin when he noticed the scented lotion. The same one that he had used last time that he was here it made his skin itch after he used it. He didn’t use it again, this time opting to go without any lotion at all. 

Kenma’s clothes were all in the living room in one of his two suitcases, they were all clean now. Kenma dragged the large suitcase to his room and dug around for some nicer clothes, before he got dressed completely he put patches on his stomach. The patches felt cool on his skin, he patted them a couple times.

“I hope that no one else can smell me,” he mumbled aloud.

When he was dressed he called his driver, he was paying him now for individual rides, almost like a taxi.

“Good morning,” the driver said.

“Yeah, good morning,” said Kenma, shuffling through his bag.

“This is a nice neighborhood when did you move here?” he asked.

“Uhh, yesterday it’s my- my new house.” said Kenma.

“Nice.” he said.

“Mhm,” said Kenma. “It is.”

Their conversations commonly went like this, awkward and short, but Kenma didn’t know what to say to him. Especially after he took him to the hospital for a drug overdose. Kenma stared out the window until they arrived outside of Crimson Idol’s building. 

“Thank you,” Kenma said, “I’ll probably be done in about three hours.”

Kenma handed him a small stack of cash, and the driver took it surprised.

“Ok I’ll be back then. Thank you.”

Kenma nodded towards him and then got out of the car to go into Crimson Idol, when he did he felt deja vu washing over him and wondered why. He had walked these halls many times of course, but it felt different. The walls were bare, there was only one receptionist at the front desk, and the lights in the gift shop were turned off. 

“Have we already won our case?” Kenma asked himself.

Kenma opened his phone to check his email, making sure that he was going to the right floor and the right room. The building was so empty, there was no one going up in the elevator with him. Kenma fidgeted with a game on his phone for a minute before giving up and shoving it back inside his pocket. He played with a loose string on his shirt sleeve until the elevator dinged to his floor.

The hallway on this floor was empty as well, there was some weak light emitting from a window at the end of the hall but there was nothing else. Kenma checked his phone again for the room number, and walked down the eerie hallway until he found the room. Kenma took a deep sigh to calm himself down before opening the door. There was only a couple people inside, they looked up when he entered.

“Good morning…” Kenma said, quietly.

Some of them nodded back at Kenma but most of them just looked back down at their paperwork or their phones. Soon Kenma’s lawyer, one that Teika hired for him long before her death came in, she sat down next to Kenma.

“Oh my god,” she said, “Kenma, did you bathe in your pheromones or something?”

“No, I took a shower this morning, and I have two pheromone patches on. What else am I supposed to do?” he asked.

“You just smell, I can smell you.”  she said.

“Sorry,”

Kenma hid himself the best that he could, he didn’t know what else he could do. A couple minutes went by and more people began to file in, mostly tall Alphas dressed in suits, or Betas with their fancy perfumes and colognes. Soon the lawyers started up and try as he might Kenma couldn’t keep up with what they were saying or the offenses that they were talking about. Looking around the room Kenma was beginning to tell who was a lawyer of a stockholder and who was the actual stockholder.

Kenma dazed off for the most part, because there wasn’t any point in contributing let alone listening to the arguments that he did not understand. Unless his lawyer was asking him to clarify something in his reports. Kenma found this quite disappointing because he had expected to come in with some sort of voice and speak for the idols and those being trained about their mistreatments by the company. He thought that maybe that would affect some of the decision to where the company is going. The meeting stretched for hours until one of the Alpha stockholders asked for a break for lunch.

“Did you bring something to eat?” asked Kenma’s lawyer concerned.

“Uhh, no, but I’m fine, I can wait.” said Kenma.

She nodded, “Ok, I’m going to go out to eat, text me if you need anything.”

Kenma smiled at her and then sat back in his chair to play games on his phone. He was at peace for awhile in his corner of the room until an Alpha sat down beside him, Kenma glanced up. They were pretty, full lips, tall, and had gorgeous long black hair ending near their waist.

“Hi Kenma,” they smiled, “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hi,” Kenma said, shyly.

They had been one of the lawyers, they were vocally for what Kenma considered the other side. They wanted the company to lay low for awhile and comeback better later, and they wanted Kenma to be a part of that comeback. Kenma glanced around the room, there weren't many people there,

“My name is Tamako, I use she her pronouns, and I have been dying to meet you.” she said, a smile creeping onto her face.

Kenma nodded, but didn’t say anything to her. He rested one of his arms on the sides of the chair.

“I was wondering, this is just between you and I, but why do you want to get Crimson Idol shut down?” she asked, “I mean in your reports to the police you deny any harm coming your way from the company and yet you don’t want the company to exist. I don’t quite understand that.”

Kenma shook his head, “I’m not answering that…”

She tilted her head to the side, “Why not?”

Kenma was smelling her now, she was clearly trying to intimidate him to get answers.

“I don’t want to answer any questions right now.” he said.

She grabbed the arm that Kenma was resting on the chair at first pretty tightly, but then she loosened her grip and began stroking his arm. Kenma tensed up,

“You can answer my question Kenma, I won’t tell anyone, and what use would it be to my case anyway.” she reassured.

“Akiba hurt me,” Kenma said, “His friends hurt me, I don’t want to go back to him anymore.”

“Is that really a valid reason to shut down a whole company? For all these people to lose their jobs?” she questioned.

“I don’t want to answer anymore questions.” Kenma said.

She scoffed, and gave his wrist a slap, before standing up and leaving quickly. Kenma sat there breathing slowly, in and out, trying to calm himself down. Soon people began filing back in and when Kenma’s lawyer sat down next to him she looked alarmed.

“Did something happen?” she asked.

“Just, there was a lawyer who tried to talk to me…” Kenma said. “Are we winning this?”

“We are coming up with a compromise.” she explained, “Kenma just know that these people care about their money, they don’t care about people.”

The meeting took the rest of the day and Kenma continually felt more guilty. He began to question what side he was on and if it was right for him to do this. Was he letting his feelings get in the way of people’s jobs? He was a millionaire now, is his greed guiding him to a place where he can be comfortably greedy instead of criticized? The meeting concluded with Kenma’s side “winning,” Crimson Idol would be completely gone by the next year, and Kenma no longer had a contract with Crimson Idol, but he was getting compensation money for mistreatment from the corporations.

Kenma felt weird and uncomfortable the rest of the way home. He got a call from Fukunaga that he was running late, but was picking up food. Kenma realized that he hadn’t eaten all day, and that he felt weak and tired. He found the pills sitting on the table in the living room and took a few, on an empty stomach the pills kicked in fast, and had a greater effect. Kenma passed out until he heard the doorbell ring, Fukunaga was at the door, he had two convenience bags with food.

Kenma and Fukunaga picked up a daily routine of meeting up together to eat and get high for about a month before they ran out of pills. Kenma couldn’t go out and get them, the drama around his scandal was over but he didn’t want to get caught doing drugs after his overdose, so he paid Fukunaga to get the drugs for them to do together. Fukunaga did it mostly because he felt that he couldn’t refuse the amount of money that Kenma was giving to him. And their routine began to shift, Fukunaga stayed over longer, and they slept together every night. They were closer than they had been before.

One day Fukunaga got a call from Tora telling him that he was moving out of their shared apartment. He told Fukunaga that he was acting different, and he was uncomfortable living there, he said that he would pay rent for as long as their joint lease lasted but after the lease expires he would not be resigning with him. Fukunaga agreed solemnly and he was sad for a couple minutes, but it was hard to be sad when Kenma was there laughing about an insurance commercial.

Everytime Fukunaga left, whether it was for work or deals or something else, Kenma always clung onto him. There were times where Fukunaga felt guilty for having to show up to work, which was a job that he was slacking on most days now. Kenma wanted Fukunaga always there, he had no one else to talk to or be with. They were both sad, and sometimes they made each other miserable, fighting or just being mean to one another. Kenma liked to use the fact that he paid Fukunaga’s rent above his head during arguments, and Fukunaga usually countered that with the fact that Kenma only had one friend who he had to pay to get drugs for him. Sometimes their relationship was beautiful, peaceful and that’s why Fukunaga and Kenma stayed for so long in this place that wasn’t quite a relationship but wasn’t quite a friendship place.

“Where are you going?” asked Kenma, one morning as Fukunaga was about to leave.

“Work, I have to go to work.” said Fukunaga.

Kenma clung onto Fukunaga, “Can’t you just call in today?”

“I’ve called in already this week,” Fukunaga said, peeling away from Kenma.

“Please, you’ve done it before, please.” Kenma pleaded. “I already pay you enough you don’t need to go to work, you don’t need to leave me you just do it to get away from me.”

“Don’t- why do you always make me out to be a bad person?” asked Fukunaga.

Kenma frowned, “Don’t leave.”

“I’m leaving,” Fukunaga said, “I’m coming back tonight.”

Kenma latched onto Fukunaga’s wrist, pleading with him further not to leave, and when Fukunaga yanked his wrist away he heard a pop and then felt an excruciating pain in his wrist. Fukunaga cringed downward gripping his wrist,

“Kenma you have to stop this.” he said.

He left quickly, leaving Kenma by himself to think about his actions, which caused Kenma to spiral into his guilt. To think about Crimson Idol, Akiba, and Fukunaga. It was his fault he thought, he has ruined so many lives. 

Kenma drank until he was laying on the couch half asleep, the more he was thinking the more he was realizing things, he was starting to see parallels between him and Akiba. Starting to see where they were lining up. Akiba was a rich man who took advantage of Kenma, his naivety, and isolated him, abused him for years. Kenma was a rich man, he took advantage of Fukunaga’s curiosity, and now he was isolating him, abusing him. Kenma sat up and stumbled to his room where he knew there was a drawer full of pills, and needles. He opened the drawer and looked at the drugs in there and it occurred to him that he might be a drug addict.

He always thought that he didn’t have to depend on drugs, he used because it gave relief sure, but he could stop whenever he wanted. But he couldn’t stop when he put the needle in his arm. He didn’t leave his bed until late in the night because he was buzzed the whole day, though he was not happy with himself. Fukunaga didn’t come back like he said that he would, and Kenma cried. 

At around two in the morning an idea came to Kenma and began to get up, there was the drawer where Teika’s jewelry used to be that was now full of cash, after all they didn’t want their purchases to be traced by card. Kenma loaded the cash into a bag and left his house, locking the door behind him. He took the train to Fukunaga’s apartment, he didn’t know for sure if Fukunaga would be there, maybe he would maybe he wouldn’t. Kenma had seen the billing address for Fukunaga’s apartment and used that to find him. He had to ring the doorbell several times to get an answer, but when Fukunaga did Kenma didn’t say anything he just handed him the bag full of cash and left.

Kenma left and got back on the train, he googled a place where he could go to rehab, it was a surreal moment. He almost admired himself for this, until his phone turned off and he saw his reflection in the black screen. Kenma sat undisturbed for a while, this was one of his first public appearances in months, he never had any reason to leave the house with Fukunaga around.

“Excuse me?” asked someone.

Kenma looked up to see a person with one of his old jacket designs on.

“Oh, hi.” said Kenma.

“Will you sign my book?” they asked.

Kenma nodded, “Sure,”

He signed his name, this is odd was all he could think. Suddenly, they turned around and pulled a small teddy bear charm from their bag, they handed it to him.

“I hope that you start to feel better.”

They smiled at him and then walked off proudly with their notebook in hand. That was bizarre was all that Kenma could think, so bizarre. He thought that it was weird that there were people who were still fans of him, people who wanted his autograph and wanted to give him gifts. The fan disappeared after the next stop, and Kenma clung to the small bag charm like his life depended on it until he got to his own stop.

Once he got to his stop he shoved the charm in his pocket and got off quickly, trains always made him anxious. They reminded him of crowded afternoons with Kuroo, when he didn’t have practice. Kenma walked the rest of the way to the drug rehabilitation center, it was closed, but Kenma decided that he would wait for it to open up otherwise he might chicken out. Kenma sat bravely on the staircase to the center, waiting for the daylight to hit, until he saw some Alpha’s walking down the street, being rowdy. They reminded Kenma of how small he was, but they just walked right past him without sparing a glance.

Kenma sat there until the sun began to rise, and a Beta came to unlock the front door. They greeted Kenma as they stepped up the stairs.

“Good morning,” they said.

“Hi, I want to be rehabilitated.” Kenma responded.

They smiled, “Yeah! Of course, usually people call first, but lucky for you we have room.”


	14. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took awhile to get out, I swear I have been writing every night it's just a slow process. Kenma is getting better and that's all that matters in life right now so yeah next chapter will be out soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING  
> Cursing  
> Mention of bad mental health  
> Mention of Weight  
> Eating  
> Mention of sex

The first room of the building was a lobby with many chairs and dormant activities lying around.

“I’ve got to get papers for you to fill out before you’re admitted, and you need to be searched before you leave the lobby.” they said, disappearing into the back room.

Kenma sat down in one of the chairs, adjusting the small bag that he had brought with him in his lap. He didn’t bring his phone or any games to play, which may not have been the brightest idea. Soon the staff member came back out this time they had papers with them and they sat down next to Kenma. Kenma noticed a name tag that said Chiyo on it and another separate circular pin with she/her pronouns labeled on it.

“Here are the papers and a pen,” she said. “Do you mind if I go through your bag real quick?”

Kenma nodded, and handed the bag over to her, she took it and began taking out all of the contents of the bag one at a time. The paperwork was a thick stack of documents, and the places that Kenma needed to sign and date were marked with pink highlighter. Kenma flipped through the papers, scanning them before he signed his name. The last of the papers was a small chart going from a smiling face to a frowning face with questions that asked him about his mental health. He glanced up at Chiyo, it seemed very patronizing. Then he watched as Chiyo went through his wallet and all the pockets of his bag.

“This a mandatory check, we do this with everyone when they enter for treatment.” she said.

Kenma nodded, and she put all of the items back in the bag, carefully.

“Now, usually we do an interview before we settle our patients in, but breakfast is getting ready so I’ll let you eat first.” she said, with a big smile.

She got up and led Kenma to the dining room, it was small, it only had three tables in it. The dining room was desolate of people so Kenma sat down at the corner table hoping that no one would kick him out.

“Breakfast should be ready soon,” Chiyo said, and slipped out of the dining doors.

Once Kenma was alone he could already feel the withdrawal symptoms creeping in, he was sweating in the open room from sitting. So he removed the light jacket he had on hoping that the air on his arms would cool him off, but it didn’t help much. All he could think about was how badly he didn’t want to experience those feelings again, how sick he felt when he was deprived of his drugs. Kenma sat his forehead down on the smooth surface of the table.

Before he knew it, people began filing into the dining room most of them were Omegas, but there were a few Betas mixed in. Kenma relaxed in his chair, watching them line up for food, he watched two of the Omegas pick up their trays and order their food before he felt confident enough to participate. Kenma stood at the back of the line, keeping his head down, it has been a long time since he was around this many people. Kenma felt two small taps on his shoulder, and he stiffened up. He turned around and saw a pair of big, round eyes staring at him,

“Hi! I’m Hinata, what's your name?”

“Kozume Kenma,” his eyes were cast downward.

“OH! Like the idol Kozume Kenma?” asked Hinata excitedly.

“Yeah… like the idol…” said Kenma.

“That’s so cool! I wish I shared a name with an idol…” Hinata said in wonderment.

Hinata continued to talk with Kenma as they both walked slowly through the line. The food smelled like heaven here, it had been a long time since Kenma had a cooked meal.

“Wait I want to sit next to you Kenma!” Hinata said, gleefully.

“Ok,” Kenma said, awkwardly.

“Did you get here last night?” asked Hinata.

“This morning, I got here at 4:00,” said Kenma, his eyes still focused on his tray.

Kenma picked at the food, it was a rice bowl filled to the brim with steamy, white mush, the vegetables on the outside made the bowl look like one giant eye staring up at him, one yellow pupil focused right at his face. He felt shivers up and down his spine, but picked up his silverware to eat anyway. Kenma glanced over at Hinata, his face was stuffed full of rice, yolk dripping down his chin. He smiled at him with his face full, Kenma’s whole body felt warm. Somehow that was disgusting and cute thought Kenma. He managed to choke down half of the breakfast bowl before he couldn’t eat anymore of it.

“Where are you going after this?” asked Hinata, who had finished his bowl, and was staring at Kenma’s.

Kenma slid the tray toward Hinata who immediately began to eat the unfinished bowl.

“I’m actually not sure yet…” said Kenma, he realized now that the nurse had left him with no instruction. “I’ll probably just stay here for now…”

“Mmm, ok,” said Hinata.

Hinata glanced at the clock hanging over the door of the dining room,

“Oh, I have to go, I’ll see you later Kenma!” he exclaimed taking both the breakfast trays in his hand to the dishwashers.

“Thank you…” breathed Kenma, quietly.

Soon the room emptied out again and Kenma sat at his table alone, mornings here moved so fast… after a couple minutes of sitting in his chair the workers came out and began to clean the tables, so Kenma left the dining area. He sat in the waiting area for awhile until nurse Chiyo found him,

“Kenma, come with me please,” she said, and motioned for him to follow. “We just have a few medical screenings to do before we place you in your room.”

She led him to a small white room where she took his temperature, his weight, and blood pressure.

“Hmmm, well your blood pressure is pretty low, make sure that you eat all of your food.” she said, “We provide the healthiest options that we can here.”

“Ok…” Kenma said.

“Your weight is also very low for your height,” she mentioned. “We have some questions about your sexual activities, and then the doctor is going to come see you for all the necessary treatments.”

“Are you sexually active?” she asked.

“No,” Kenma said.

He said no to most of the questions, but there were a lot of gray areas in between, he couldn’t remember the last time that he had sex. But he had also been close with Fukunaga, very close. After about ten more questions she nodded her head,

“That’s it! I’ll get you a doctor to see you soon,” she said, picking up her laptop and leaving the room.

Once again he was left to his own devices, he looked around the office. It was not like a pediatrician's office at all. There were brightly colored informational posters on the cabinets talking about birth control, and pheromones. Kenma stood up and studied the chart about the birth control, mostly it was just pills, but there were shots and other strange devices all over the poster as well. The Alpha birth controls were listed in red, Beta in white, and Omega in blue, the poster barely fit over the edges of the cabinet it was so large. Kenma jumped when the door to the office suddenly opened.

“Oh, sorry I didn’t mean to frighten you.” said the doctor, “Hi Kenma my name is Dr. Katsu Imada.”

Kenma shook their hand, they sat down in the rolling chair and Kenma sat back down on the plush black chair across from them.

“How are you feeling today?” asked Dr. Imada.

Kenma shrugged, “I haven’t slept.”

The doctor nodded, “I’m just going to measure your heart beat.”

Kenma could feel the cold of the metal through his t-shirt, as the doctor loomed over him, Kenma shifted awkwardly in his chair.

“We are going to collect a blood sample from, and then we should probably talk about some form of birth control as well.” said the Doctor.

Kenma nodded, “The birth control, will it help with the pheromones? My last doctor-”

“Yeah, birth control can help with your pheromones, you do produce quite a lot at the moment.” said Dr. Imada. “Did you by any chance drink BlueWater Energy within the past year?”

“I think so, I was sponsored by them a lot…” Kenma explained.

“Ah, I see, they were shut down earlier this year after the health department found out they were putting small doses of pheromone steroids in their drink. It was messing up everyone’s health, including Betas. It will probably help you immensely to take a contraceptive with pheromone regulators for a year or so.” he said.

Kenma felt his neck heat up, “Is that why I never got pregnant?”

“It might be, it also might have just been the drugs and alcohol that you were putting through your system. You don’t have to worry though, most young Omegas are still able to recover from steroids and can still get pregnant.”

“Oh, ok,” said Kenma.

“I’ll go get a nurse to get that blood sample, and then you're free to go until next week,” he said.

‘We didn’t even talk about birth control…’ thought Kenma. 

The nurse came in and it was not Chiyo this time, but they smiled down at Kenma anyway.

“Do you need to lay down for this?” They asked.

“No, I’m ok,” said Kenma.

“Alright, just make sure that you relax your arm and we’ll get this done real fast.” they said. “I usually like to do a count down when I draw blood is that ok?”

“Mhm,”

“Ok,” they said.

Kenma only noticed now the various marks that he had up and down his arm from his own needles, there was a particularly giant bruise on his elbow, he didn’t remember getting that one.

“3… 2… 1.”

Kenma watched as the needle pricked his skin. It was a long needle, longer than most of the ones that he had ever seen, even at the hospital. Then he saw his thick red blood begin to bubble up inside the barrel of the syringe, slowly filling until it was near the middle. They smiled as they took the needle out,

“Perfect,” they said, and placed a bandaid over the small hole in Kenma’s skin.

‘Wonder if they have more of those…” thought Kenma as he looked at the bruised spots on his exposed arm.

“Do you need any help getting back to the lobby?” they asked.

“No thank you,”

Kenma weaved his way through the hallways until he found the lobby, where a lot of the other patients were gathered.. Kenma’s body went stiff until he spotted a patch of fiery red hair waving his arms frantically,

“Kenma! Kenma!” Hinata shouted at him.

“Oh,” Kenma sighed, relieved.

“How was the doctor?” asked Hinata.

“It was fine,” Kenma shrugged.

“Do you want to play checkers with me?” he asked.

“Sure,” Kenma smiled and sat down, across from Hinata on the floor.

There was a large fabric checkerboard spread out on the floor.

“I don’t think I’ve played this since elementary school,” said Kenma.

Kenma began the first move and soon found that Hinata was terrible at checkers, he had no patience and no strategy. Hinata’s face was scrunched up in concentration as Kenma continued to dominate the board. When Kenma knocked out Hinata’s last player, Hinata threw his arms in the air,

“So close!” he exclaimed.

“Not really…” said Kenma.

“How are you so good at checkers?”

“I just like to play strategy games,” said Kenma.

“I love playing games,” said Hinata, “What’s your favorite game?”

“Oh,” Kenma flushed, “I- I don’t even know if I could answer that… that’s a big question…”

“Kozume Kenma!”

Kenma perked up at the sound, he saw Chiyo and two police officers next to her. Slowly, he got up and walked over to them,

“Good afternoon Kenma,” said one of the officers, “We are currently investigating BlueWater Energy and Crimson Idol, and we wanted to ask you some questions. We meant to schedule this meeting earlier this year however there was a lot to do.”

“Ok,” said Kenma, he followed them outside onto a patio.

The officers sat down opposite Kenma, one of the officers, who had a giant quiff on the top of their head,  pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and offered one to Kenma, who shyly took one.

“Thank you,” he said, quietly, lighting his cigarette.

The sun was just starting to get high in the sky and was beating down on the three people incessantly, while bugs whizzed and buzzed past Kenma’s head until he released the smoke in a gradual puff.

“Sorry for disturbing you during your recovery, we just had some questions about your involvement with these two companies.”

“Ok,” said Kenma.

“When did you get involved with these two companies?” asked the officer with the large hair.

“I got involved with Crimson Idol first, a year before I even heard of BlueWater Energy, BlueWater Energy sponsored part of my deput, so that’s why I was involved with them.” Kenma said, “ I didn’t have any say in either of the companies, I was just a performer that they hired.”

“Alright, so by not having any say do you mean that they forced you to drink the energy drink?” asked the officer.

“No, they just made the drink the most readily available for me,” he said. “It apparently messed up my health pretty badly, I wish that I hadn’t drank it at all.”

“Mhm, how many years would you say that you drank it?”

“I think around six years, because they continued to sponsor me.” said Kenma, taking another drag from his cigarette.

The officer nodded his head, “You didn’t know of any of the malicious ingredients?”

“No otherwise I would not have drank any of it, I drank this almost everyday, especially while touring.” said Kenma.

“So I’m going to move on to some questions about personal relationships which you do not have to answer if you don’t feel comfortable enough to answer.” said the other police officer, who had virtually no hair compared to his partner. “This is a little more pressing than BlueWater Energy.”

Kenma nodded, “Is it about Akiba and Teika?”

“Yes, there was a lot of public… speculation about your relationship with Akiba, so we know that you two were close.”

“We were engaged, I thought that we were in love…” said Kenma. “I know that he did bad things but he never involved me in them, I don’t even think I was supposed to hear about those things.”

“So you knew about the things that he did?” asked the officer with the hair.

“Not a lot, as I said it was stuff I wasn’t supposed to hear.” said Kenma.

“But you didn’t call anyone?”

“I didn’t have anyone to call…” said Kenma.

“No one? Not your parents or a friend?”

Kenma shook his head, “I didn’t know what to do and I was afraid.”

The officers both nodded at the same time. “Are you aware that Akiba went missing the night of Teika’s death?”

Kenma nodded his head yes.

“Have you been in contact with him at all since his disappearance?”

“No, I tried to call and text his personal and work phone after he left, but he never answered any of my messages.”

The officer with the hair sighed, “Ok… I think that’s all for now, thank you.”

They left, leaving Kenma to finish his cigarette in silence. Kenma was beginning to notice the times that he spent alone, and it made his heart ache. Despite meeting Hinata today he couldn’t help but notice the empty longing feeling that was squeezing continually at his heart and his lungs.

“Oh god…” Kenma sighed deeply.

He rose from the chair slowly and put his cigarette out on an ashtray sitting in the middle of the table. As soon as Kenma was inside the building again Chiyo greeted him,

“We wanted to see if you would be interested in taking one on one therapy as well as group therapy,” she said, “but we usually make our patients do at least one session of one on one just so that we get a general sense of where your mental health is at, which is partially why we had you fill out that mental health survey earlier today.”

“Ok,” said Kenma, following her down yet another hallway.

At the end of the hall Chiyo knocked on one of the doors,

“Come in!”

Kenma heard the shaky voice of an old person seep through the crack at the bottom of the door. Kenma fidgeted with the ends of his shirt as Chiyo opened the door for him revealing a small dim office with a work table and a couch that was far too big for it’s space. There was an old person sitting in the office smiling up at Kenma.

“Thank you,” said Kenma as Chiyo walked away.

“How are you doing?” asked Sako, her name and pronouns printed on her desk label.

“I’m good,” said Kenma tentatively sitting down on the couch across from her.

“That’s good,” she said, slowly typing something into her computer. “Is there anything that you wanted to talk about today in particular?”

Kenma shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t know I was just told to come here.”

“Hmm, ok, do you mind if I dig in then?”

Kenma shook his head no.

“What got you started on drugs?” she asked.

Kenma was taken back by the question, because after a moment of terribly awkward silence he realized that he could hardly remember.

“Umm…” he said, “I think it was a party I don’t remember which one… I-”

He stopped when he felt a warm tear streak down his face, he reached up and blotted it. He had felt the tears start to fill in his eyes, but did not expect them to fall.

“I’m sorry…” he breathed.

“It’s ok, sometimes these memories can be very painful to remember.” she reassured him.

Kenma nodded, “Yeah, I think it was a party I don’t remember much of it, but I remember how terrible I felt afterwards.”

“Do you remember who was there? Your friends or family?” she asked.

Kenma shook his head, “I know my friend, my past friend Kuroo was there but I don’t remember much of the party.”

She nodded, “Your past friend do you not talk anymore?”

“We haven’t talked in years…” said Kenma. “I don’t talk to many people.”

“So who do you feel that you can talk to when you need help?” she asked.

“No one right now.”

Kenma kept his sentences short because he could feel his throat clenching, as he desperately tried to hold back his emotions.

“Did you used to have someone that you felt you could depend on?”

“My manager Teika, I guess. But she died.” said Kenma.

“Oh, I’m sorry for your loss,”

“It’s ok,”

“What did depending on Teika feel like?” she asked.

“I’ve never thought about it before,” said Kenma, “I guess it was sometimes good, but she kind of switched around things.”

“What do you mean by that?” she asked.

“Like sometimes she would listen and understand but other times she wouldn’t even want to look at me.” said Kenma. “She was the one that gave me all the stuff until she passed away.”

“Oh, I see, and how long did your relationship with Teika last?”

“Seven years? I think?” Kenma guessed.

She nodded, after an hour of her probing Kenma and some tears Kenma agreed to come back to her next week, because for the first time in a long time Kenma felt relieved, lighter than he had been. When Kenma was done with therapy the sun was setting low in the sky, hidden for the most part between the tall buildings surrounding the center. Dinner was served and Hinata talked through a lot of it, they found out that they had a lot of the same interests or at least knew about most of the same things like volleyball and video games. 

After dinner Hinata showed Kenma to his bed, which had his bag laid out on it. Kenma settled in, he was exhausted after having no sleep for so long and having such a full day, however he found himself restless. His mind wandered to other places like Fukunaga and what he was doing. He wandered where in the world Akiba was and what he was doing there. He felt his heart pump up when he thought about all of his fans who were probably wondering what he was doing. 

Kenma even began questioning if he still wanted to be an idol or if he wanted to quit and find something else that he could do. His thoughts drifted to his fans who were probably slowly trickling away, and he didn’t know if he felt sad about that or if he was ok with it. Maybe letting go of this thing that he didn’t even know that he wanted to have in the first place would help ease the ache in his head. Or maybe if he let’s go it will just be a mistake that his regret clings to for the rest of his life. 

The next day Kenma was woken up by Hinata,

“Good morning!!” Hinata exclaimed.

He wondered how such a happy person could be here, and how he wasn’t annoyed with his loud voice hadn’t already annoyed him to no end. Hinata dragged Kenma nearly everywhere he went, especially after he learned that Kenma knew about volleyball, and that lots of his friends play against Hinata in high school. Hinata was so dumb, and he talked loudly with his mouthfull, and when he found out Kenma was an idol he screamed, but Kenma couldn’t help but notice the way that the ends of his mouth curved up in his sleep or how his tongue stuck out when he thought really hard. By the time that winter, and new years came around Hinata was ready to leave, Kenma didn’t want to let go. Hinata and Kenma were sitting on the ground up against a wall, playing games on Kenma’s new phone.

“Hey, Hinata…”

“Hmm?”

Kenma took a deep breath, letting it fill up the space in his lungs and push his nerves down to his stomach.

“I love- like more than just a friend…” Kenma confessed.

“Oh,”

Hinata’s little smile vanished from his face quickly.

Oh.

“I’m sorry Kenma…” apologized Hinata, “I don’t feel the same way.”

“No, I’m sorry- I just thought-”

Kenma pulled up his knees to his chest to hide his red face, he could feel his heart beating throughout his body. Kenma felt Hinata’s hand on his shoulder,

“It’s ok,” He whispered.

“I’m so sorry Shoyo I ruined everything…” 

“No, of course not, we can still be friends.”

Kenma nodded,

“It’s not a big deal ok?”

“Ok,”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! More to come soon!  
> I made a brand new twitter account, in case anyone wanted to message, but wanted it to be private! Feel free to reach out for anything! [Twitter](https://twitter.com/KittyKellogs)


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